ISIS hacks Michigan church website; 'We will break your crosses, enslave your women'

CB Condez Wednesday, April 27, 2016

The website of a Michigan church was hacked by a terror group and left a threatening message for Christians.

People walk in front of a large computer screen showing different types of code. | (Photo: Reuters/Christian Charisiu)

"We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses and enslave your women by the permission of Allah, the Exalted," said a video posted on the site of the Lamont Christian Reformed Church in Michigan, as reported by Fox 17.

A 15-year-old girl stumbled upon the defaced site on Friday while searching for the church's phone number. The landing page bore the words "You have been hacked by the United Cyber Caliphate," and a video started playing.

"It just started playing, and I was reading the bottom, and it was talking about crazy things. I called my dad in, and said he needs to see this. I covered the camera, because I was super scared there for a second," said Elizabeth Storteboom. "It was just talking about hating Christians and how Allah was God and everything. I was just confused. They were talking about taking women and children and stuff."

The website, run by Coopersville's C.C.S. Technologies, was fixed by the afternoon of Saturday, and the church has notified the FBI. There is no confirmation if it's a real threat or merely a prank, but at Sunday's service, there was still tension at church.

The United Cyber Caliphate is said to be a consolidation of several Islamic State hacking groups, including: IS's main hacking unit, the Cyber Caliphate Army; the Sons Caliphate Army; the Kalacnikov.TN; and other pro-ISIS groups. The new, bigger group has claimed reponsibility for hacking numerous websites. Apart from the Michigan church, websites of more than 20 small businesses in Australia also experienced defacement, said ABC.

TechWorm also said that the group got hold of information of 18,000 employees of the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation. Last week, it reportedly released the names and addresses of the "most important citizens of #NewYork and #Brooklyn" and called on IS supporters to use the data to carry out attacks on those 3,602 citizens. A hit list naming 43 federal personnel of the State Department and Homeland Security, among other state departments, reportedly circulated in a Telegram messenger channel on Sunday, said Vocativ.

This merger reportedly follows an earlier one, that of AnonGhost and CCA.