Pro-ISIS Hacktivists Release ‘Kill List’ of Minnesota Cops
Government (U.S.) // Minnesota, United States
A group of hackers who say they are affiliated with the Islamic State have posted a wanted list naming and detailing 36 policemen.
The list, published by the “Caliphate Cyber Army” on the Telegram messaging service, includes full names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of all the men.
The content was discovered by Vocativ’s deep web analysts.
ISIS has in the past released names and details of American servicemen at the end of execution videos, urging its followers to target the troops wherever they can.
It’s unclear how effective the hackers are. Last month Vocativ found they had falsely boasted about hacking Google. Another group calling itself “the sons of the Caliphate army” has also threatened Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey in retaliation for efforts to suspend ISIS-affiliated social media accounts.
Fox 9 confirmed the posting of police officers’ information with the FBI on March 15.
"Clearly, in law enforcement we don’t want this information out there at all possible. As far as whether it’s chilling, it is something that is not wanted," FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said.
According to the FBI, the supposed law enforcement targets are spread out across Minnesota and the Dakotas. St. Paul Police Department confirmed four of its officers are on the list and it is taking the necessary precautions to protect them.