US military’s Cyber Command unit has stepped up virtual war against ISIS

THE US is undertaking a new cyber strategy in an effort to annihilate the Islamic State, and it’s in the public domain for a reason.

THE US military has made a strategical pivot towards a greater level of cyber warfare in a bid to disrupt and weaken the Islamic State.

The National Security Agency (NSA) and its band of hackers have targeted IS members for a number of years but until now the agency’s military counterpart known as the Cyber Command has conducted no virtual attacks against the Islamic group.

But that has changed, as the six-year-old Cyber Command unit has begun mounting computer-network attacks against IS members, reports The New York Times. The militant branch of the NSA has previously been focused on China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

The Islamic State group has proven to be an effective online operator using social media, highly-produced video propaganda and encrypted communication to promote its message and recruit members.

According to the Times report, the new strategy aims to disrupt such online activities by making it harder for members to communicate. The cyber attacks hope to interfere with the day-to-day activities of the group making it difficult, for example, for the group to pay its fighters.

For obvious reasons, such matters are seldom addressed by US officials in the media but they have been uncharacteristically vocal about their latest move.

“We are dropping cyber bombs,” announced deputy secretary of defence Robert O. Work this month. “We have never done that before.”

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has also spoken of the new cyber warfare initiative saying it is designed to “overload their network so that they can’t function” and “interrupt their ability to command and control forces there, control the population and the economy”.

Disrupting the communication of IS militants and publicly acknowledging as much will take away from the ability of US officials to monitor ISIS communication and collect intel, but it’s a trade off they are happy to make.

Among the strategies alluded to by senior US officials in recent months is a series of “implants” into the group’s network to learn the online habits of IS leadership and then imitate them or alter messages to manipulate operations. Such a tactic could be used to redirect IS forces to an area where they are vulnerable for attack.

By making such information public, the US believes it will rattle the commanders of the Islamic State group and inject a greater level of uncertainty into its daily operations. But the US has been deliberately broad in its characterisation of the policy.

During a news conference in February the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stressed the need for the element of surprise in such attacks.

“We’re trying to limit their ability to conduct, command and control, limit their ability to communicate with each other, limit their ability to conduct operations,” he said.

“I’ll be one of the first ones arguing that that’s about all we should talk about ... We want them to be surprised when we conduct cyberoperations.”