Unconfirmed reports suggest that a number of Twitter accounts affiliated with the militant group ISIS can be traced back to IP addresses associated with the UK government. According to Russia Insider, a group of hackers known as VandaSec has discovered that a number of ISIS-supporting accounts on the social media site can be linked back to the British Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
Does this mean that UK government staff members are in control of a number of ISIS-related Twitter accounts? Well, no. In fact, it seems as though the offending IP addresses don’t even belong to the DWP anymore, because they were sold off to notorious human rights offender Saudi Arabia back in last year.
“Jamie Turner, an expert from a firm called PCA Predict, discovered a record of the sale of IP addresses, and found a large number were transferred to Saudi Arabia in October of this year,” Russia Insider reports. “He told us it was likely the IP addresses could still be traced back to the DWP because records of the addresses had not yet been fully updated.”
“The Cabinet Office has now admitted to selling the IP addresses on to Saudi Telecom and the Saudi-based Mobile Telecommunications Company earlier this year as part of a wider drive to get rid of a large number of the DWP’s IP addresses,” the report added.
The IP address sell-off follows a number of arms deals between the UK and Saudi Arabia, a bit of business that UK Prime Minster David Cameron was rather proud of, despite the European Union voting in favour of an embargo on weapons sales to the Arabian country.
Yup, whilst VandaSec was doing the sluething I was trying to cut through the noise to let them know that whilst redirection of the data usually only takes 24-48hrs max, it still means they have to ensure UK/US ownership records are updated.