• عربي
  • Fr
  • Es
No Result
View All Result
European Eye on Radicalization
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
      • Editorial board and staff
      • Contributors
    • Vision
  • Analysis
  • Opinion Pieces
    • EER Editorials
    • Contributors’ Opinions
  • Reports
  • Reading Radicalization
  • Events
    • EER Events
    • Events EER attends
  • Interviews
  • Videos
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
      • Editorial board and staff
      • Contributors
    • Vision
  • Analysis
  • Opinion Pieces
    • EER Editorials
    • Contributors’ Opinions
  • Reports
  • Reading Radicalization
  • Events
    • EER Events
    • Events EER attends
  • Interviews
  • Videos
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
European Eye on Radicalization
No Result
View All Result
Home Reading Radicalization

Hacking ISIS – How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad

M. Nance and C. Sampson, Skyhorse Publisher, 320 pages, $ 12.78

27 January 2019
in Reading Radicalization
Hacking ISIS – How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad
1,866
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Valerio Mazzoni

This book by Malcolm Nance and Chris Sampson, both experts in counterterrorism intelligence, is an absolute must-read. Despite the vast challenges of the task they took on, the authors were able to master a huge quantity of material and offer a good outlook on the history and evolution of cyber jihad.

Even in a technical framework, the history of cyber jihad is above all a human story. The authors dedicate a part of their work to summarizing the most prominent figures of the digital jihadi battleground, including Anwar al-Awlaki, famous for his online activity and known as “The Bin Laden of the Internet”, Abu Sayyaf, the mastermind of the Islamic State operatives database, and Junaid Hussein, considered to be the first cyber emir of the self-styled Caliphate.

Both al-Qaeda and, more recently, Islamic State have exploited their cyber capabilities in recent years, recognizing the crucial importance of the online battleground for their propaganda operations and also as logistical tool to support strikes against their enemies worldwide.

As far as the propaganda machine is concerned, Islamic State has several media arms, each with different aims and organizational structures.

Each province (wilaya) has an official media channel, entitled with the province’s name and offering shared official statements, photo reports and videos.

The well-known al Hayat Media Center is the media outlet created to communicate with people who do not speak Arabic. It is famous for films such as Flames of War and Inside the Khilafa (caliphate).

Al Furqan Media is the official leadership media branch, used by Islamic State’s official spokesmen and the group’s leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi himself.

Alongside the famous official channels, there are the affiliated media such as Amaq News Agency, which covers news on operations carried out by Islamic State worldwide.

All these channels and media outlets managed to share their content for years by exploiting various software programs and online sites, both on the surface and deep in the dark web, showing the extreme liquidity and adaptability of cyber jihad.

In fact, the efforts of big online companies such as Google, YouTube and Twitter did not stop the proliferation of jihadi propaganda messages. Despite the difficulties, the jihadi cyber branch employed different tools to evade the countermeasures of the big tech companies, including new programs and social media networks such as Telegram, Rocket Chat, Viber and Riot. This continuous propagation of online propaganda, combined with calls by Islamic State to carry out solitary attacks in support of jihad, has increased the threat of the “lone wolf”, with some planning their attacks through social networks such as Telegram.

Technology can be a weapon as well as a tool. In late 2016, groups including the Ghost Caliphate Section, Sons of the Caliphate Army, Cyber Caliphate Army and Kalachnikov E-security Team merged into a single group and announced the creation of the UCC – United Cyber Caliphate on Telegram. At present, despite its aggressive foundation statement, this group has limited capabilities to carry out complex strikes and is often limited to relatively simple DDoS attacks.

After analyzing jihadi cyber warfare, the authors provde a detailed analysis of the narrative messages of Caliphate media campaigns, focusing on the evolution through different phases of the terrorist group, from al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) up to today’s Islamic State.

Alongside the efforts of Islamic State supporters on the cyber battlefield, the authors also analyze the counterterrorism activities of hacktivists and the academic world, such as the war declared by the famous hacktivist group Anonymous and the attempts by scholars to track and monitor jihadi online activity in order to anticipate its evolution.

There is one crucial question, hidden throughout the book until it is made explicit in the final chapter. Scholars, security services and big tech companies have to coordinate their efforts in order to counter the spread of jihadi hate messages in the best way. Recognizing this common aim, is closing and destroying the spaces where the jihadi messages are spread really useful? For example, despite the extensive efforts of the big tech companies to shut down the accounts disseminating hate messages, jihadists and supporters of the cause always manage to find other spaces, better hidden and harder to track for the analysts engaged in the study of this phenomenon. Perhaps the time has come to develop a more effective counter-narrative?

Related Posts

The Architect of the Muslim Brotherhood: The Man and His Mission
Reading Radicalization

The Architect of the Muslim Brotherhood: The Man and His Mission

28 April 2022
Review: “Muslim Brotherhood’s New Startup: Kashmir”
Reading Radicalization

Review: “Muslim Brotherhood’s New Startup: Kashmir”

21 February 2022
Book Review: ‘Jihadism in Europe: European Youth and the New Caliphate’
Reading Radicalization

Book Review: ‘Jihadism in Europe: European Youth and the New Caliphate’

14 January 2022
Global Jihad: A Brief History
Reading Radicalization

Global Jihad: A Brief History

17 December 2021
The Arab Spring Ruse: How the Muslim Brotherhood Duped Washington in Libya and Syria
Reading Radicalization

The Arab Spring Ruse: How the Muslim Brotherhood Duped Washington in Libya and Syria

22 November 2021
Review: “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Pan-European Structure”
Reading Radicalization

Review: “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Pan-European Structure”

12 November 2021

Latest from Twitter

Popular

Russia, Afghanistan, and the Islamic State Threat to Central Asia

9 March 2022
Islamist Extremism and Jihadism in Latin America: A Longstanding and Underestimated Phenomenon

Islamist Extremism and Jihadism in Latin America: A Longstanding and Underestimated Phenomenon

14 April 2022

Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeinism in Italy: The Told and the Untold

6 May 2022
Islamist Organizations in the United Kingdom: From the Rushdie Affair to Present Day

Islamist Organizations in the United Kingdom: From the Rushdie Affair to Present Day

17 January 2022
Becoming Ansar Allah: How the Islamic Revolution Conquered Yemen

Becoming Ansar Allah: How the Islamic Revolution Conquered Yemen

24 March 2021
Reflections on the ‘Islamic’ Dimension of Conflicts in the East and in France

Reflections on the ‘Islamic’ Dimension of Conflicts in the East and in France

3 November 2021

© 2018 EER - Copyright © European Eye on Radicalization.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
      • Editorial board and staff
      • Contributors
    • Vision
  • Analysis
  • Opinion Pieces
    • EER Editorials
    • Contributors’ Opinions
  • Reports
  • Reading Radicalization
  • Events
    • EER Events
    • Events EER attends
  • Interviews
  • Videos
  • Contact
  • عربي
  • Fr
  • Es

© 2018 EER - Copyright © European Eye on Radicalization.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.