Hackers sympathetic to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took over the United States Central Command’s Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and YouTube accounts for about an hour on Monday and posted a number of inflammatory comments, photos, and videos before the Pentagon was able to disable its accounts.

Using the alias “CyberCaliphate,” the hackers tweeted repeated threats that ISIS would be coming for American soldiers and their families. The group also released several documents on Pastebin.com, including a list of work phone numbers of current Army officers as well as the email and mailing addresses of dozens of retired generals.

Most of the files appear to have already been publically available online. Noting that the pro-ISIS hackers did not compromise CENTCOM’s operational military networks and have had no operational impact, the U.S. Department of Defense said it was treating the incident “purely as a case of cybervandalism.”

While the Department of Defense’s effort to downplay the cyberattack is unsurprising, its failure to use common security measures to protect its social media accounts is troubling. According to the Wall Street Journal, the DoD manages the Twitter accounts of the nine U.S. combatant commands but the CENTCOM account allegedly did not even have two-factor verification enabled.

With Central Command responsible for overseeing the American air strikes against ISIS, the cyberattack amounts to a propaganda victory for the militants. Most embarrassing for the administration, CyberCaliphate carried out the security breach while President Barack Obama was busy giving a speech to the Federal Trade Commission on cybersecurity and identity theft.

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently posted a ‘warning’ to foreign airports that have direct flights into the US, with an apparent focus on UK airports, namely Manchester and London’s Heathrow. In this posting, Secretary Johnson, the head of the DHS stated that elevated security measures were being implemented based on the ever changing security climate.

So, what exactly are these elevated security measures? According to the BBC, these new security measure being implemented in airports like Manchester and London are requiring users to have their electronic devices charged and to be able to power the device on when prompted to. Furthermore, if a device does not have charge or is ‘dead’ a passenger may actually be prevented from boarding their flight without proof of an operational laptop or tablet.

British Airways released a statement in regards to the issue at hand that advises that you not bring on any devices that are inoperable or depleted from charge. This includes people transferring from flights through the UK that may have had long flights. So, if you’re flying in economy and don’t have a charging plug, you no longer have the right to use your devices until they die because you might not get let onto your connecting flight.

The UK government also has a travel advisory that states,

Flying to the US

Make sure your electronic devices are charged before you travel. If your device doesn’t switch on, you won’t be allowed to bring it onto the aircraft.

These new rules implemented by the DHS are absolutely ridiculous and put an undo burden on consumers. I have flown through Heathrow countless times and have had a few instances where I had a dead phone, dead tablet or a dead laptop. And when you look at the utter lack of charging stations in Heathrow and in planes, it seems absolutely insane for them to be pushing these requirements on consumers without trying to alleviate them. The DHS and the UK have once again made flying miserable again and they’re taking more of our rights away without any justifications.

There are going to be easy ways to get around this ‘power-on’ requirement set by the DHS if you’re really trying to build a device that will cause harm. This is yet another pointless security measure being presented in airports to make traveling even more ridiculous and difficult than it already is.

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As the war in Iraq rages on with an upsurge of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) violence in the northern parts of the country, a battle also rages on in the web, especially on Twitter. Originally started by a tweet from what appears to be an unofficial ISIS Twitter account which stated that ISIS brought $500 million worth of wealth to the people of Mosul. This is in reference to the fact that they managed to break into Mosul’s central bank and steal 500 billion Iraqi Dinars which comes out to about $425 million, making them possibly the wealthiest terrorist group the world, overnight.

Well, the Department of State maintains a Twitter account that goes by the name Think Again Turn Away, trying to make people aware of the ills of terrorism and to convince people to walk away from terrorism and not cause people harm. The account states that it talks about “some truths about terrorism” and looking at their feed and responses, they clearly are more on the offensive on Twitter. Then, the following tweet came from the ISIS account.

ISIS gave 500 million $ worth of wealth to people of Mosul.

— Islamic State Media (@ISIS_Conquests) June 20, 2014

This was followed by the Department of State account  

.@ISIS_Conquests #ISIS only gives the people misery, destruction & public executions- #alqaeda ideology is incapable of anything positive — Think AgainTurn Away (@ThinkAgain_DOS) June 20, 2014

And then the ISIS account fired back, saying

@ThinkAgain_DOS Yes you are right because you tasted it all the way to your hometown in USA

— Islamic State Media (@ISIS_Conquests) June 20, 2014

This once again shows how even Twitter can be used as a battlefield between governments or in this case governments and terrorist organizations. Right now, the situation in Iraq isn’t a pretty one and we’re hoping for the best for the people of Iraq, regardless of these Twitter wars that are designed to change the perception of the public through tweets.

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