The Next War on Terror Will Be Fought Online

AQ has been onto the  tech track prior to 9/11. Many of their pups have gone to school specifically to learn computer/tech/progrmming skills, here in the U.S.. Some are entrenched in Universities and government jobs in the U.S. giving them access to sensitive information. Many AQ that arrived 30-40 years ago, deliberately inter-married, thus, traditionally, their daughters pass as caucausion. For some reason, the male gene seems to remain darker skinned. They have developed codes on FB and Twitter that easily pass for everyday lingo.

You know, I could see some aspect of the WOT being fought on line, just as a significant part of WWII involved signal intelligence warefare, code breaking, cypto stuff like the Navaho talkers and deception work like the false radio traffic that had the Germans thinking Patton and the 3rd Army were going to kick off D-Day at the Pas d Calais. But you still have to kill badguys. It seems to me that most of what I've seen is hackers using DOS attacks. Is that a big deal? Jester shuts down a jihadist website for for a couple of days or a week? What if the website was a false flag operation set up by the CIA to smoke out terrorists? What if it was an NSA mirror site? Is Jester going to know about that? The problem with someone like Jester operating alone, is that he is operating "alone" with a tactical picture he is viewing thru a soda straw given his isolation.. I'm not down on Jester(pause....sorry I lost my connection there for an hour) but I would think that our focus is not on those sites being up but on who is accessing them. Jihadist websites are like a light that draw moths to it. We're trying to kill the moths not bust the light bulb. I wonder if our cyber capability is a little misdirected? We should be doing more than disruption, we should be doing destruction. What I keep waiting to hear is that we've stolen all of Al Qaeda money and deposited it into the US Treasury. That's a wartime operation on the order of Rochefort breaking the JN-25 cipher. Rewrite the jihadists bomb making recipies so that wannabes blow themselves up making a bomb in their moms kitchen. Perhaps we are. I suspect that the Bin Laden raid gave us some very useful intel on bad guy locations and operational plans and I suspect that we have been using that stuff in relation to the recent drone strikes we've all be haring about. The stuff hitting Iran seems very sophisticated, but hell it could have come from Kapersky to make his anti-virus suite more marketable.

There is so much out there about the present and future cyberwarfare, crimes, and terrorism, and I'm no subject matter expert on anything cyber. While most cyberterrorism articles talk about the danger to data, personal info, weapons systems, etc., here is an alleged cyper assassination.

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In Italy, not too long ago, a mob boss was shot but survived the shooting. That night, while he was in the hospital, the assassins hacked into the hospital computer and changed his medication so that he would be given a lethal injection. He was a dead man a few hours later. They then changed the medication order back to its correct form, after it had been incorrectly administered, to cover their tracks so that the nurse would be blamed for the “accident.”

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/09/29/a-cyber-assassination-confirmed/#ixzz1wa1r4GKP Defense.org

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There used to be an article in the Daily Sun about it (which I saved), but now it won't let me access it. This was written in 2010.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/special-%20reports/2010/sept/25/special-report-25-09-2010-001.htm

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/internet-security-fail/Good article on STUXNET and Flame by the guy in the video.

This post prompted a blog response (below) from me where I outline why I fear the rapid shift to fighting terror online is actually a way to lose many battles in the War on Terror. Cheers, -Pk

https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/21494-The-Next-War-on-Terror-Will-Be-Lost-Online.html

If you want an example of just how low Anonymous hackers will go - they hit Wounded Warrior Project last night.  Now that's about as cheap as it gets.

Maybe not directly relevant, but anyone had a look on the infected microchips article over at DefenseTech ?

http://defensetech.org/2012/05/30/smoking-gun-proof-that-military-chips-from-china-are-infected/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5fsf6Qm3lI

here is Mikko talking about Government espionage using viruses in email attachments!

The bad news is that it's actually much worse than Mikko discussed in his RSA presentation. Check out this video released by Senator Lieberman's committee. It calls for an "electronic Jihad" against U.S. government computers and critical infrastructure. It includes video clips from 60 Minutes and a couple of U.S. experts who were providing details on U.S. weaknesses and how to exploit them. The good news is that al Qaeda doesn't currently have the expertise to make these attacks happen but that's probably just a matter of time. The really bad news is that the current vulnerabilities present in U.S. critical infrastructure aren't going away so once these terrorist groups line up the right talent, shit's gonna get real. 

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2012/05/al-qaeda-video-calls-electronic-jihad-government-computers/55886/?oref=ng-dropdown

http://www.as-ansar.com/vb/index.php

That is an example of the open forums that he was talking about.  A lot of people don't realize that the big T Taliban were internet pioneers and have maintained a website since the mid 90's (while simultaneously banning toothpaste because the Prophet didn't have it in his day.)  I've been following these kinds of forums for awhile now (off and on) and they are a huge trove of open source intelligence.

I am surprised he didn't mention Ansar's Cyber warfare section.

http://www.as-ansar.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=69

I'll also point out that all of the Taliban leadership/spokesmen use gmail.  I literally have about 5 active gmail addresses used for media relations, fund raising and propaganda distribution by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Also, for those that don't know, Backtrack is a Linux distribution (operating system) designed from the ground up for penetration testing (hacking).

I'd also check out the recent Saudi/Israeli cyber spat.  There are plenty of good Salafist hackers out there...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46040393/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/israeli-hackers-hit-saudi-stock-exchange/#.T8Zbh7BYv0Q

LOL, he also doesn't mention that Al-Shabaab doesn't publish rap videos anymore because they murdered their favorite white rapper.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/04/shabaab_did_not_deny_rumors_th.php 

Brandon, it is already happening. 

I've got to say this, great intel!!!  Thanks for sharing Brandon, well done Laura!!

I made reference to the FLAME virus this morning over in the NSA thread.  With out a doubt Hezbollah and the Palestinians are as sophisticated or more sophisticated than AQ.  My wife's cousin is an Iranian born programmer and smart as hell.  We should never discount these fellows abilities.  I like the repeated comparison of AQ & Jihadis to organized crime.  We need to continue this thought process, examine current cutting edge criminal methodology for banking and comms.  

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.