First, Britain's MI6 hacked Al-Qaeda's English language 'Inspire' website by substituting an Ellen DeGeneres cupcake recipe for bomb-making instructions. The supplanted Al-Qaeda article was entitled "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.' Seriously. We are certain Al Qaeda particularly appreciated the substituted culinary advice of a popular lesbian comedienne and TV personality. It took several weeks for the corrupted site (as it were) to go back online.
Then, cyber warriors or 'sophisticated, government-sponsored' hackers took down the entire Al Qaeda communications network. It remains down and reportedly will probably take several days to get back up.
As background, there is evidently a dispute between the CIA, which wants to keep such sites up as a means of gathering intelligence and the military Cyber Warfare Command, which thinks they should be put out of action. As is usual in such situations, agreement it hard to reach. The MI6 hack took place with CIA support, while the more recent takedown is probably a Cyber War job.
Kinda makes the whole Lulzsec thing a bit beside the point. Or not. JL
Pete Williams reports on MSNBC:
"Computer hackers shut down al-Qaida's ability to communicate its messages to the world through the Internet, interrupting the group's flow of videos and communiqués, according to a terrorism expert.
Al-Qaida's online communications have been temporarily crippled, and it does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the Internet," said Evan Kohlmann, of Flashpoint Global Partners, which monitors the group's communications. The attack was carried out within the past few days by unknown hackers targeting al-Qaida's Internet communications systems. It was "well coordinated and involved the use of an unusual cocktail of relatively sophisticated techniques," Kohlmann said.
"My guess is that it will take them at least several days more to repair the damage and get their network up and functioning again," he said.
A year ago, al-Qaida's Internet communications suffered a similar hacker attack. British newspapers reported earlier this month that the the UK government hacked into an al-Qaida website last year and inserted recipes for making cupcakes in place of instructions on how to build bombs. The target was the group's English language magazine, "Inspire," intended for Muslims in the West. The magazine is the product of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen.
Instead of an article called "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," the online magazine contained recipes from a book assembled by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. It took the terrorist group nearly two weeks to restore its original posting.
Kohlmann said the latest incident "once again appears to bear the telltale fingerprints of government-sponsored hackers."
June 3 report on British security agency MI6 hacking Al Qaeda website:
British spies hacked into an al-Qaida website to replace instructions on how to build a bomb with recipes for making cupcakes, newspapers reported on Friday.
The cyber offensive took place last year when the English language magazine called Inspire, aimed at Muslims in the West, was launched by supporters of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
British intelligence officers based at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the state eavesdropping service, attacked the 67-page magazine, leaving most of it garbled, British newspapers said.
Instead of being able to read how to "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," readers were greeted with computer code which actually contained recipes from The Best Cupcakes in America, published by U.S. chat show host Ellen DeGeneres.
The Washington Post reported that the British action followed a dispute between the CIA and the newly formed U.S. Cyber Command. The cyber unit had wanted to block the al Qaeda magazine but the CIA, which had countered such an attack would expose sources and intelligence methods, won the debate and declined to allow an attack on Inspire.
The paper reported that it took almost two weeks for AQAP to post a corrected version of the magazine after it had been sabotaged. A British security source said the Post's report was accurate but could not confirm details of the reported cupcake operation.
Last year, Britain's new National Security Strategy placed cyber attacks as one of the top threats to the country, and ministers have repeatedly spoken out about the danger posed by extremist Islamist websites
0 comments:
Post a Comment