U.S. Army website hacked, Syrian group claims credit

The U.S. Army's website, www.army.mil, was offline Monday afternoon after it was compromised by hackers who took it over and used it to post their own messages.

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army claimed on Twitter that it was behind the hack.

The Army affirmed that part of its website had been compromised but clarified that the site carried no sensitive information about Army activities nor any personal information about soldiers.

"After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily," said Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm B. Frost, Chief of Public Affairs.

As of Monday afternoon, attempts to open the army.mil website resulted in a message of "This webpage is not available."

A Twitter account called SyrianElectronicArmy began tweeting around noon that it had hacked the Army website and "left several messages on it."

One read "Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting."

The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of hackers who support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In the past the group, or at least people claiming to be the group, have launched computer attacks against political opponents, news sites, human rights groups and other governments as well as U.S. defense contractors.