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15 September 2014

Digital Jihad: The Great Irhabi Cyber War That Won’t Be.



Islamic State militants are planning the creation of a ‘cyber caliphate’ protected by their own encryption software – from behind which they will launch massive hacking attacks on the U.S. and the West.

Both Islamic State and Al Qaeda claim to be actively recruiting skilled hackers in a bid to create a team of jihadist computer experts capable of causing devastating cyber disruptions to Western institutions.

They are now boasting it is only a matter of time before their plan becomes a reality.

The Great Cyber Jihad

Since Junaid Hussain escaped over the border to the new lands of jihad (aka Syria) he has been vocal on Twitter showing off his great cyber manhood in classic irhabi bloviating online. That Junaid made some inroads by hacking into the prime minister’s email address at Gmail only lends him dubious credit to his hacking skills to a person involved in the security field. This however is not how the great unwashed within the media and certain quarters of the government and the military seem to perceive the threat posed by Junaid today now that he is an ISIL irhabi.

Islamic State militants are planning the creation of a ‘cyber caliphate’ protected by their own encryption software – from behind which they will launch massive hacking attacks on the U.S. and the West.

Both Islamic State and Al Qaeda claim to be actively recruiting skilled hackers in a bid to create a team of jihadist computer experts capable of causing devastating cyber disruptions to Western institutions.

They are now boasting it is only a matter of time before their plan becomes a reality.

The above text came from just one of the spate of recent reports on the great “Cyber Jihad” that is being touted to come from the likes of Junaid and ISIS/L as they attempt to expand their reach from the Middle East globally. This ls.particular commentary makes the bile rise within my gut on so many levels though. But that kind of pales in comparison to the one right below…


“We’re in a pre-9/11 moment with cyber,” John Carlin, assistant attorney in charge of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, warned at a July conference in Aspen. “It’s clear that the terrorists want to use cyber-enabled means to cause the maximum amount of destruction as they can to our infrastructure.” 

PRE-9/11 OMG!!! Look you fuckwit if that were the case then China would have already put us out of our misery really. For that matter some half assed pot sodden kid who happened to hack into our grid would have taken us down years ago. There is just no need for this posturing and certainly above all coming from someone without a clue in their head about how things really work in the world of computer security. This kind of scare tactic aimed at getting people to respond in fear to allow for the government to do anything in the name of protecting us is vile.

Meanwhile you have other players such as the one below making statements of “ALL OUT CYBER WAR” while commenting on Anonymous’ operation against ISIS. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed until I just wanted to cry at the sheer stupidity of it all. Look, Anonymous can’t get their shit together enough to be both leaderless and effective so really, how much of an “ALL OUT CYBER WAR” can there be there huh? Do you even know what a cyber war really means? Cyber warfare is both digital and kinetic in it’s purest form and what kinetics did Anonymous really carry out in this operation to DoS ISIS offline?

Lemme give you a clue… None.

“Anonymous announced late last week a full scale cyber war against the Islamic State (Operation Ice ISIS), intended to attack ISIS supporters using social media for propaganda purposes”

So aside from the bloviating and the scare tactics coming out of ISIS itself we also have our responses from the government and the media with all their so called experts on cyber war and jihad. There is a lot of wankery going on here but finally this guy makes a little sense in the middle of his post on this mess…

ISIS’s main effort to date in cyberspace has focused on psychological warfare by generating fear through flooding the internet with video clips portraying the brutal acts of beheading and mass executions, as well as victory parades, as part of developing deterrence and creating an illusion of force in excess of the organization’s actual strength. The essence of its online activity, however, is broader. It enables its supporters to obtain operational information, including training in preparing explosives and car bombs, and religious rulings legitimizing massacres in regions under ISIS control. In tandem, it distributes indoctrination materials, such as a maagzine called Dabiq: The Return of Khilafah, which focuses mainly on topics relating to formation of the new Islamic state headed by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However, ISIS’s technological expertise is not the only factor. Perhaps the public, which is revolted by the organization’s deeds but closely follows these clips and photos as a kind of reality show, is contributing a great deal to the organization’s popularity.

Yes, there it is.. ISIS has been carrying out a PROPAGANDA war primarily and with that comes from PSYOPS as well. This is the first true set of statements I have seen to date over this whole debacle. Ok, they are waging a propaganda war and a recruitment drive for sure but really, a cyber caliphate? I mean to date I have not seen this show up verbatim anywhere on the boards or on twitter so who’s leaping logic here? Seems to me that there’s a sucker born every minute and about 99% of them want to go into journalism nowadays.

A propaganda war using Twitter does not a cyber war make.
Cyber Warfare and Jihad

So let’s chat about the realities here about the capabilities of the Irhabi (ISIS/L or AQ or SEA) in a context of what we have seen so far. What have we seen you ask? Well, DoS, some data thievery, some malware use and phishing, but generally nothing spectacularly scary. Certainly nothing on the level of a nation state actor like China has been seen out of any of the loose groups that claim some jihadi notions online to date. So where do we get all this BOOGA BOOGA over the likes of Junaid Hussain and ISIS taking down our grids and things?

*squint*

Yeah, there’s no there there. I am sorry but even if ISIS/L used it’s monies that it has stolen over the last months to set up a “cyber team” they still would be LIGHT YEARS behind the likes of China.. Hell they would even be way behind Iran for that matter so really, there is nothing to fear here. Never mind that many of these guys like Junaid are working in countries that are actively being bombed and shooting is happening so really, how much longer does Juny have anyway before he gets a Hellfile missile up his ass?

Truly the cyber jihad is a non starter for me and it should be for you too. On the other end of that equation though is the fact that they are actively recruiting and getting their message out using social media and this is a problem. Now don’t get me wrong, it is not a clear and present danger kind of thing because really, 100 Americans out of how many people seeing their online drivel have actually left the country to go to jihad pretty much gives a sense of the threat. You have to be pretty unbalanced to want to do this shit to start with so if you get up and leave the country to join up you are a truly unbalanced person to start. One so easily swayed by the propaganda wing of ISIS needs help and what they will certainly get is a bullet instead while fighting. Even ISISL really doesn’t care about the Takfiri, you see kids, they are just bodies to be used… Nothing more. They may call you brother but under their breath they call you fodder.
Much Ado About Nothing

The reality is that ISIS is more a conventional force than anything else. They are not as well planned as AQ and they tend to be one dimensional thinkers. I will admit that their propaganda war has been interesting to watch but I don’t see that it is an existential threat. In fact, I concur with the assessment that AQ is still the real player here who can strike at the US and had a better track record thus far. Surely if ISIS continues to carry out the propaganda war they may garner more recruits but I just don’t see them being that inspirational to get lone wolves to activate/radicalize. I certainly don’t see them being able to put teams together to hack our infrastructure and take us down either. In fact I am not a proponent of that line of thinking anyway as a great threat. Our systems are too complex and fragmented to allow for such a spectacular attack.

So please news media… STFU.

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