US Centcom Twitter account hacked by pro-IS group

The US government is seriously looking into the hacking of social media accounts of the military's Central Command, the White House said.

"I can tell you this is something that we are obviously looking into and something that we take seriously," White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters.

"A note of caution to folks as they're covering this story, there's a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account. So we are still examining and investigating the extent of this incident," he said in response to a question.

The hackers posted threatening messages on Twitter and YouTube accounts aimed at American troops.

Initial US media reports said that the tweets appeared to be from sympathisers of the Islamic State militant group.

In a statement, the CENTCOM said its social media account has been "compromised" and said it "is taking appropriate measures to address the matter".

The twitter account was disabled later on.