Cyber Jihad for Dummies
Cue Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones. Roll back to the 80s and the hit series Tour of Duty. Fast forward to Body of Lies and The Kingdom. Welcome to the 21st century. Wars are still being fought, fictional or real. The methods have evolved. We find ourselves staring down the barrel of a new enemy: Jihadis.From the ubiquitous AK-47s and Reagan Stingers, these jihadis are no longer a force of reaction, they have adopted cyberspace to bring their war to the West.
The concept of jihad itself is as foreign as sticky rice to most Westerners. But look back at the West's own chequered past circa the 15th and 16th century and we find a commonality. When Europe was expanding their empire and annexing kingdoms far and wide, they did so based on one idea, the 3Gs: God, glory and gold. The jihadis see the Western civilization as the unwelcomed force trying to usurp their religion and way of life, moulding them into the modern version of kowtowing Aztecs. The Western world is viewed as starting wars to push a global indoctrination agenda. They shout to the world how the West are pillaging their land and resources. To them, the West are the modern Hernan Cortez.
As the adage goes: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! So what do these jihadis do? Assimilate themselves into Western society, understand the Western way of life, all to pinpoint areas of weaknesses. They use the local education system to educate their brightest minds, welcome the weak into their fold and turning that person into one who subsists on the hatred of everything Western. And today, they use technology to bring the West to their knees: Jihad, meet Cyber. Cyber, meet Jihad. As intelligence and military resources are stretched, jihadis are slowly but surely mustering the know-how to infiltrate, manipulate and extricate the information superhighway. Their methods and tools might be rudimentary, but so's the AK-47. Wars have been lost because enemies have been underestimated.
The following is an interview with Jeffrey Bardin. Jeff is the Chief Security Officer at Treadstone 71 and one of the world's foremost experts on Jihadis.
Are we losing a technological war against the jihadis? Are we doing anything different today than what we were doing 3 years ago? How about 1 year ago?
Jeff Not at all. The jihadis drive with respect to technology, and I refer to computer/internet technologies, is not to develop nation-state like capabilities. At this point, their use of information technologies focuses on deriving the most out of every feature and functionality provided by the vendor. In addition, they have developed some of their own hacking tools but these are relatively low level and not well funded. They also use information technologies and Web 2.0 technologies as methods to hide and obfuscate their activities. In some cases, they have taken traditional physical spy tradecraft and applied it to the internet.
We are much more aware of their capabilities now and have a greater understanding of their intent and methods for the organization and dissemination of information; of their radicalization process and how recruitment starts with respect to the Internet. One of the differences has to do with the plethora of information provided by the jihadis with respect to the Internet. In their zeal to spread their messages of hate and destruction, they have increased 10 fold their use of various Internet and Web 2.0 technologies creating a broader spectrum for analysis and exploitation.
What are they doing differently now?
Jeff One thing that stands out is the struggle that has vexed security professionals for a long time and that is usability versus security. Let me explain. A few years ago, entrance to a jihadi social networking site required a series of standard questions that would be submitted on the target site. Your expectation was that you would receive an email response with site access information within an unspecified timeframe. You may or may not receive anything for days, even weeks. Attempting to resubmit using the same email address would result in a rejection indicating you had already applied yet you had not received a positive message for access. Using another email address may result in the same process and result or it might have resulted in an email response. It was relatively unpredictable. The best way was to get a referral from someone who was trusted and already in the site. A bit of a chicken and egg situation. In addition, some site required an additional vetting whereby they would email you questions as to your approach to Islam, seeking answers that would line up with the Salafi view. Answer correctly, and you were in. Answer poorly and there was no response. One key point here to understand is that this was all in Arabic.
As time has progressed, the jihadis desire to expand their target audience has become the main focus. The same questions are used for access but a response is relatively immediate to your email account. The additional vetting questions also have gone by the wayside as social networking sites starting offering English language versions. This expanded to Spanish, French and German as well. It has even gotten to the point that if you want to read much of what is available on the sites, you don’t have to register at all, you just can’t participate in the forums. Forums within social networking sites now offer specifics to women with a focus on the issues surrounding the hijab or niqab (veil). Of course, the main them is information, exaggerated information and disinformation as well as inflammatory propaganda intended to incite, inflame and be a core component of the radicalization process.
Figure 1
So as time has progressed (see Figure 1) and their target market increased along with the ease of use for their sites, their security has been reduced to directly correspond.
We all know motivation can move mountains and their motivation is simple, the destruction of all that is American. What is our real motivation? Safe guarding lives? Safe guarding the big corporations? Or the oft-given answer - To safeguard our constitution and way of life?
Jeff You pack several different questions and concepts that would take a large debate amongst many to come to obvious disagreements! The question stretches between virtual and physical worlds and I will answer only that which corresponds to the virtual. Our motivation with respect to the jihadis use of the Internet may be summarized in a couple of areas that can sometimes be diametrically opposed to one another while other times working in conjunction with one another.
There are many who believe that any and all jihadist websites and social networking sites should be forcibly removed from existence. Anytime one is found, it should be reported to the ISP or hosting site and removed. If they don’t remove, many believe it should be brought down through technological means whether considered legal or not. This is sometimes call ‘patriot hackers.’ There are groups today who are dedicated to just this type of activity. It is largely a ‘whack a mole’ process as the site usually reappears within days hosted elsewhere or buried as a sub-domain that is advertised on sites that were not taken down. This is what I call the see-detect-arrest method of dealing with jihadist sites. It is largely a black and white issue of search and destroy.
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