By Ian Allen IntelNews:
The global reach of the Islamic State through the use of the internet
remains “largely intact” despite relentless efforts by some of America’s
most advanced cyber warfare experts to neutralize the group’s online
presence. It is now over a year since the United States Department of
Defense announced that it had launched a cyber war against the Islamic
State —the militant Sunni Muslim group that today controls large parts
of Syria and Iraq.
At that time, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), put in
motion plans that included the deployment of computer viruses,
denial-of-service attacks and other cyber weapons against computers,
internet servers and cell phone networks belonging to the Islamic State.
As intelNews wrote
at the time, the idea behind the plan was that an all-out online war
against the Sunni militant group would hurt its public image and prevent
it from launching armed attacks against targets abroad. Additionally,
the Pentagon aimed to disrupt the Islamic State’s ability to recruit new
members online, to spread its propaganda and to coordinate operations
through the use of encrypted communications.
