A mysterious hacker claims the have hacked 250 Twitter accounts affiliated with the Isalmic State terror group in the past month, CNN Money reported.
The hacker, who is thought to have ties to the anti-censorship hacking collective, Anonymous, launched an effort to sabotage IS-affiliated accounts by giving them LGBT pride makeovers in solidarity with the victim’s of last Sunday’s terrorist attack on a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida. Omar Mateen, the killer in the attack that left 49 dead and 53 wounded, pledged allegiance to the Islamic extremist group before initiating the massacre.
After the breech, the typically black and white terrorist Twitter pages displayed flamboyant rainbow image,s and pro-LGBT messages replaced Arabic writing.
The individual responsible for the hacking goes by the handle WauchulaGhost. He told CNN Money that in addition to this past week’s operation, he has posted explicit pornographic images to IS-affiliated accounts “to humiliate them.”
“Daesh doesn’t like porn,” the hacker told the Washington Post. “Daesh” is the Arabic name for ISIS. “They don’t like women in general. We just started using it to poke fun at them and diminish their presence online.”
But after the June 12 attack in Orlando, he decided to change his style.
"You had all those innocent lives lost," he told CNN Money. "I just felt there's something I could do against the Islamic State to defend those people."
After Twitter suspended many of the hijacked IS accounts in accordance with its no-tolerance policy regarding “terroristic content,” WauchulaGhost has criticized the social media giant for not focusing on accounts still under the control of the terror group’s supporters.
“I think we’re there to serve a purpose, at least I know I am,” he told the Post. “My goal waking up in the morning [is to] see messages from Daesh, telling me they’re going to kill me or cut my head off. The madder they get, the happier I get.”
Though the online vigilante has expressed no concern over his personal safety, he noted in a Twitter post Friday that he does worry about "nutjobs like Omar [Mateen] that are wandering our streets."
"If you know of anyone that has made any comment ... supporting ISIS, report them," the hacker urged followers. "It's time we all stand up and do what we can."
