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Encryption Security United States IT Technology

US Begins Dropping 'Cyberbombs' On ISIS (nytimes.com) 126

Posted by msmash from the fighting-crime-with-cyberattacks dept.
In what appears to be a significant shift in its tactic to battle against the terrorist organization, the U.S. has begun launching cyberattacks against ISIS (non-paywall link). The New York Times reports that the Department of Defense's Cyber Command unit is mounting cyberattacks against the terrorist organization. The Cyber Command unit aims to stop the organization from spreading its message. The Times reports: The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out day-to-day functions, like paying its fighters. A benefit of the administration's exceedingly rare public discussion of the campaign, officials said, is to rattle the Islamic State's commanders, who have begun to realize that sophisticated hacking efforts are manipulating their data. Potential recruits may also be deterred if they come to worry about the security of their communications with the militant group. "We are dropping cyberbombs," Robert O. Work, deputy secretary of defense said. "We have never done that before."
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US Begins Dropping 'Cyberbombs' On ISIS More

US Begins Dropping 'Cyberbombs' On ISIS

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  • Stop with the links to pay walls. If you can't find another article then the article is useless.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by fustakrakich ( 1673220 )

      Try deleting the NYT cookies, you should get through. Works for me.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Try deleting the NYT cookies, you should get through. Works for me.

        Or just stop reading the NYT altogether to show paywalls are not acceptable.

        • Nah, some of their stories I like. I'm not going to miss out if I can find a way in.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Or perhaps get a subscription and stop stealing their content?

          • If they place cookies on my hardware, I am entitled to do whatever I wish to clean my hardware. If cookies are their only deterrent, it isn't 'stealing' for me to delete them.

    • Wth? You read the articles? ^_^

      • I thought we were supposed to ignore the articles, do a very rapid reading of the summary for buzzwords and then write witty comments about completely unrelated topics.

        The new Macbook, even with a faster SSD and faster CPU, still sucks and is way too expensive.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by DamonHD ( 794830 )

          Bitter, angry rants, with spittle flying, is what you're meant to be doing. Although "Offtopic" does seem to be important, I'll grant you.

          Didn't you get the memo?

          Rgds

          Damon

          PS. I have a Mac with SSD! B^>

  • Non-Paywalled Story (Score:5, Informative)

    by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 ) <mike@mikesmYEATS ... n.com minus poet> on Monday April 25, 2016 @01:48PM (#51984457) Homepage

    Via the New York Post [nypost.com]:

    US officials confirmed that operations launched out of Fort Meade have focused on disrupting the group’s online activities. The officials said the effort is getting under way as operators try a range of attacks to see what works and what doesn’t. They declined to discuss details, other than to say that the attacks include efforts to prevent the group from distributing propaganda, videos, or other types of recruiting and messaging on social media sites such as Twitter, and across the Internet in general. Other attacks could include attempts to stop insurgents from conducting financial or logistical transactions online. Several US officials spoke about the cyber campaign on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Much of the effort is classified.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 )

      From The New York Times:

      "We are dropping cyberbombs," Mr. Work said. "We have never done that before."

      Yeah. Right.

      Wait, it gets better:

      The campaign has been conducted by a small number of "national mission teams," newly created cyberunits loosely modeled on Special Operations forces.

      And by "loosely" they mean "are people" and "paid by the government".

      Remember, replace all the "cyber" with "Facebook" and you'll get a better idea of what they're really doing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        How are they going to prevent these bombs being used against the US? Parts of their last cyber weapon (Struxnet) have been reverse engineered and used against the West.

        A cyber cold war with a nation state like Iran is one thing, but ISIS isn't going to hold back.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by KGIII ( 973947 )

        I have a stupidly expensive laptop but I'm retarded and brought it out onto the beach yesterday morning. It was still able to ping the wireless so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Somehow, I scratched the screen.

        I tell you that so that I can tell you this...

        When I read your post, I read it as "Special Operations farces." The little scratch is just right and in just the right spot. I've yet to order a replacement but I will. When I got to your line about read it with Facebook substituting cyber, I had

  • Bomb is an inapropriate word for this kind of attack.

    Yeah, I know, we have come to think of bombing as something the US does and it tends to reflect a larger attack, but it still seems wrong.

    If you don't like cyberattack, as not sufficiently grand, than call it a Cyberinvasion.

    Or how about "cyberplague". That sounds more like what we are doing - initiating a cyberplague on the Isis.

    • How about "cyberpoking" or "cyberslapfighting"?

    • ...or is it just DDOSsing their infrastructure? Seems like something Anonymous or Lizard Squad would do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by KGIII ( 973947 )

      Maybe they're sending 'em tweets that say, "Run this to see a picture of Portman covered in hot grits: $ :(){ :|:& };:" and the IS guys are following through with it, mmm?

    • I don't know, perhaps these 'cyberbombs' have a good chance of causing collateral damage, just like the "boom" ones.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheCarp ( 96830 )

      Looks like just a bunch of cyberfapping to me.

      Basically, it is exactly what I would expect from the kind of out of touch people who are still unironically using the prefix cyber in 2016 to coin new words.

      Anyone who has been paying even a little attention knows that the only acceptable words with that prefix are -punk -dyne and -sex, and only occasionally -space but only if its funnier than making a "tubes" reference.

  • I bet ISIS are quaking in their boots.

    That's sarcasm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 605dave ( 722736 )

      Which version of the Quake engine are they running?

  • Start dropping fast food on them. Destroy their health, destroy their ability to fight. Lots of American Idle too - the combination will be impossible to resist - it's worked on y'all, it can work on them too.

  • Cyberbomb Arsenal (Score:5, Funny)

    by flopsquad ( 3518045 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @02:13PM (#51984627)
    More from the interview with Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work:

    "We've developed a wide array of cybermunitions that fill various roles in our Comprehensive Cybercombat Arsenal (CCA). We can drop cyberbombs that selectively destroy the enemy's Information Superhighways and Network Bridges. We can keep out hostile cyberforces by putting up a very tall firewall and, if need be, surrounding the perimeter with cyberexplosive charges--our Minecraft is very strong. "

    The Deputy Secretary leaned in conspiratorially, "Our most powerful cyberbombs can even level entire GeoCities."

    He raised his eyebrows, nodded once, and finally leaned back in his chair, folding his arms with what can only be described as supreme confidence.

    • I suspect these "bombs" were placed in brown paper bags, lit with a match and dropped on their doorsteps.

  • So they are infecting ISIS machines with Microsoft Clippy?

  • Collateral Damage (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sdguero ( 1112795 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @02:42PM (#51984851)
    Like Stuxnet, any attack that the government launches has the potential to affect computers that are not owned by ISIS terrorists (or in Stuxnet's case, Iranian centrifuges).

    The more success that Cyber Command has, the more comfortable they will be with with launching cyber bombs. At some point there will be significant collateral damage.
    • Like bombs!

    • The big collateral damage is to reduce espioniage.

      ISIS have HR forms, probably stored on computers, and without cyber experts. Getting access that data would be valuable. But if you destroy it then you just make your attempts obvious and they lock it down tighter. Like the way Stuxnet woke up the Iranians to cyber security, while doing very little actual damage.

      This is the SOE vs CIS argument in WWII. SOE wanted to blow things up, but mainly just achieved blowing the cover of CIS intelligence agents.
      htt [wikipedia.org]

  • I'm sure that between this and the devastating Climate Change summit [thefederalist.com], ISIS will surrender any day now.

  • The first rule of cyberbombs... (Score:3)

    by Mike Van Pelt ( 32582 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @02:54PM (#51984919)

    ... is, don't confirm you're dropping cyberbombs!

    Dang... yeah, I read the article, but still, making Daesh doubt the security of their computers a bit more pales into importance with them trusting compromised computers a bit more. How much is going to "go dark" now that the current administration decided to grab some headlines with this stuff that never should have seen the light of day? (At least, until after Daesh has ceased to be a threat to anyone.)

    Or is it all disinformation? We can't compromise their computers, so make them think we have. If so, I could approve of that.

    • If they're forced to 'go dark' they won't be able to recruit many more newbies from the West.

      They need particularly stupid people to be their newbies, who won't be able to figure out how to navigate the dark channels.

  • Telling the population at large that the "enemy" is forbidden to speak to them really gives the imprimatur of authority and validity to ISIS.
    Good job there, pentagon!
    Close brackes on the Sarcasm flag.

  • We got health benefits!
    Adventure!
    Real FPS!
    Your own harem!

    We even provide safe spaces for SJW's!
    If you are a SJW and wanting to join, we provide 100% guaranteed SAFESPACE vests. Anytime you feel threatened or think someone looking at you sideways means you've been raped then just simply press the button and an instant safe space will be provided for you.
    This service is free of charge for all joining SJW's as a courtesy.

    If joining, you can instantly get your health benefits with no waiting period, go over to

  • when they start holding Saudi Arabia accountable and stop sending those Toyotas and H&K G34s to ISIS. These airstrikes on empty buildings and trollings of ISIS websites are little more than PR stunts.
  • time to set up my ISIS honeypot for some fresh 0days.

  • I guess that's an euphemism for trolling them on twitter, à la :'Ahmed is stoopid!"

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