US Army Website Offline after Hack by Syrian Electronic Army

(FNA)- The US Army took its official website down as a precaution after it was compromised by the Syrian Electronic Army.

The Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for a Monday hack of Army.mil, the US Army's main website for news and public information. Pop-ups posted to the page criticize US military moves in the Middle East, cnet reported.

"Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting," the pop-up message on www.army.mil read, a screenshot of which the group posted to Twitter.

Attempts to reach the website Monday afternoon were met with a "network error" message. US Army officials confirmed they took the site down to prevent any sensitive data from being compromised.

"Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm B. Frost said in a statement. "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."

The hack is the second time in less than six months that a US Army Web property has been breached by a resistance group.

During the past couple of years, the Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility for several hacks of news sites and company Web sites.