al Qaeda threatens 'cyber jihad'
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Sympathisers will likely be instructed to download a desktop tool to launch denial of service...
Individuals purporting to be followers of Osama bin Laden have reportedly announced plans to launch a massive, co-ordinated ‘cyber jihad’ against a range of ‘anti-Muslim’, websites commencing on November 11.
The Internet announcement, which was made on Monday, was picked up by counter-terrorism sources close to DEBKAfile, the Israeli, Jerusalem-based military intelligence website. Electronic experts operating for al Qaeda will begin by targeting 15 key Western, Jewish, Israeli, and Muslim ‘apostate’ websites, the online magazine reports.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteer Islamist hackers will eventually be drawn into the operation, the announcement claimed. Sympathisers will likely be instructed to download a desktop tool which enables the user to launch a denial of service attack against a target website.
The ‘Electronic Jihad Program’, which Information Age reported on in July, allows users to target a specific IP address in order to attack and take offline its supporting servers. Its Windows-like interface provides a list of selected targets and a choice of attack intensity, including weak, medium and strong. Users simply click on their chosen target and click “attack”.
Similar tools are known to have been used in the cyber attacks launched against Baltic state Estonia, first reported in the UK by Information Age, which crippled government run and private IT networks in late April and early May of this year.
In April, however, Information Age reported on the growing threat of cyber assault to both government and corporate networks, from a range of political and criminal groups operating online.
This was underlined in September when The Times newspaper revealed that the Chinese military has drawn up a comprehensive blueprint for cyber-warfare, which it regards as “critical” to seizing the initiative during the early stages of war.
According to Phyllis Schneck of FBI-run organisation InfraGard, major, coordinated activist or terrorist assault upon mission critical Western IT networks is "not a matter of if, but when".
Further reading
China unveils plan for cyber warfare
Political activists blamed for cyber assault
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