The Justice Department’s chief national security prosecutor said
Wednesday that the Islamic State is “actively attempting” to possess
destructive cyberattack capabilities, adding that the group is intent on
causing major damage via cyber means.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John
Carlin made the comments during the Financial Times Cyber Security
Summit at the National Press Club in Washington. Carlin did note that
there is no evidence to suggest ISIS yet has the ability to wage
destructive hack attacks because, as he put it, if they had the
capability “they’d use it.”
But speaking more broadly to ISIS’ cyber ambitions,
Carlin touched on an ongoing case involving data theft when
acknowledging the so-called caliphate’s less sophisticated capability.
Kosovo citizen Ardit Ferizi, who was extradited to
the United States from Malaysia in January, faces federal charges tied
to his alleged hacking of a U.S. company for the purposes of stealing
personally identifiable information on U.S. military and federal
personnel and then turning that information over to ISIS. That
information was later distributed by British-born ISIS operative Junaid
Hussain in a social media campaign that urged the group’s followers to
target the individuals whose information was stolen.
Hussain was killed in a U.S. drone strike last summer.
In a nod to ISIS’ “strategic success” in its use of
social media as a recruitment tool, Carlin noted the terror group’s
ability to target American youth through what he called a “Madison
Avenue-quality” propaganda campaign. As Fox News has reported, of the
terrorism-related prosecutions the Justice Department has undertaken
over the last year, nearly every case involves some social media
component.
Just last month the Justice Department convened a
summit attended by U.S. national security leaders, academics, as well as
executives in the technology, advertising and media industries to
discuss terrorist recruitment and propaganda distribution via the
Internet.
The gathering was described to Fox News as a
“brainstorm” intended to give the attending organizations the
opportunity to contribute their respective talents in the digital
countering violent extremism movement.