Military Tightens Password Security after Central Command Hack

• By Matt Holden
• Jan 14, 2015

The military has taken measures to tighten its social media password security due to a hack that seized the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts.

The accounts briefly carried messages promoting the Islamic State, forcing officials to launch an investigation into the attack.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters that he has ordered all 50 Office of Secretary of Defense social media websites to change their passwords and increase the strength of their passwords -- and offered a tip sheet to social media account administrators on "how to keep their accounts more secure."

Standard security procedures include the use of long passwords with multiple characters and ensuring that only a small number of people can access the accounts, according to Roger Kay, president of research firm Endpoint Technologies. “You want to have just one or two individuals responsible for the account,” he said. “They should be named individuals, so that if there’s a problem, you can go to those people.

In a statement released on Monday evening, Central Command said that its Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised for approximately 30 minutes, before being taken temporarily offline while officials investigated the incident. The Twitter account and YouTube channel were back online late Monday.