Anonymous hacks ISIS-affiliated Facebook & Twitter accounts

Anonymous has wrecked havoc on the the social media accounts of Islamic extremist group ISIS, as part of its recently announced #OpISIS hacking campaign.

The hacking collective published a statement of its intent on text-sharing website Pastebin on 6 February, alongside a list of the Twitter and Facebook accounts belonging to ISIS it claims to have taken down.

"ISIS we will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you," the statement reads.

"From now on, [there will be] no safe place for you online... You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure."

This statement was followed up days later by a second list containing hundreds more Twitter accounts that it has subsequently targeted, along with details of Facebook pages, Google + details, websites and email addresses too.

A check through the list reveals a number of Twitter pages confirming the listed pages no longer exist, alongside ones who appear to have had their details and past tweets wiped.

The group also says there will be more to come soon.

The decision to target ISIS affiliated social media accounts is likely to be an attempt by Anonymous to disrupt the way the organisation distributes propaganda, targets possible recruits and publicises details of its attacks.

This isn't the first time Anonymous has turned its attention to Islamic extremists, as the hacking group also targeted websites belonging to them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack last month in Paris.

The group reportedly deployed a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack to take down a French Jihadist website during this phase.