Islamic state hacking cyber army publishes 'kill list' of Minnesota police officers

An Islamic State hacking group known as the Caliphate Cyber Army has published a 'kill list' of 36 police officers in Minnesota exposing their full names, addresses and contact details.

The 'wanted' list was posted to encrypted mobile messaging app Telegram following a cyberattack on Minnesota law enforcement and singles out officers as targets, website Vocativ discovered after a routine trawl of the deep web. The information of each policeman appears on the app as 'cards' with their personal information displayed over an image of armed Isis militants in the background.

The intention of the list is to alert Isis supporters and members to the identities of the officers they want to 'kill' but is more likely to be a piece of propaganda intended to scare. It is unclear why the Caliphate Cyber Army has specifically targeted officers who are located in Minnesota.

"That is something that we want to be able to answer in a very forthright manner," said Kyle Loven, Chief Division Council of FBI, Minneapolis. "Quite frankly, we are trying to work through some of these questions as we speak. So, hopefully, we are able to resolve that question as we move forward."

It is understood a large Somalian community resides in the state and, according to a congress report from 2015, one in four Americans who attempted to join Isis was found to be from the mid-western state.

The hacking group, which is believed to be affiliated with Isis, has previously posted information of law officials after claiming responsibility for infiltrating the Twitter account of the United States Central Command. They have been known to threaten the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter over its policy of removing Isis-related accounts.

On the Telegram platform it also directed a threat towards its next target claiming financial services should be prepared: "It will include banks, money transfer services, stocks and so on. Beware of us, economical [sic] war has just started," the message said.