Hackers affiliated with ISIS released a new video yesterday which threatens an "electronic war" on targets in the US, Europe and Australia. The terrorist group claim they are opening up a new online battle front against the western world.
The group, which call themselves the "Islamic State's Defenders in the Internet" claim in the video entitled Message to America that it had already breached the online presence of "the American leadership" but offered no evidence or names of officials.
"Praise to Allah, today we extend on the land and in the internet," a hooded and anonymous figure with a masked voice says in Arabic in the video, accompanied by English subtitles. "We send this message to America and Europe. We are the hackers of the Islamic State and the electronic war has not yet begun. The electronic war has not yet begun."
"What you have seen is just a preface of the future," he adds. "We are able until this moment to hack the website of the American leadership and the website of the Australian airport and many other websites."
In the three-minute long video, the hackers show previous breaches of official American outlets, such as the Cyber Caliphate's hack of the CENTCOM Twitter and YouTube accounts in January this year.
"Your security information is in our hands," the figure's address continues. "We observe all the movements you are doing from your devices."
Benjamin Decker, senior intelligence analyst at the Tel Aviv-based geopolitical risk consultancy The Levantine Group, says the video is mainly a propaganda ploy with the capabilities of hackers linked to ISIS still at a low-level in comparison with their video and design skills.
"Offensive hacking, to really disrupt information structures, is a completely different ball-game. They are nowhere near the Premier League," he says.
"We're looking at ISIS hackers compared to other groups (such as Anonymous), they are on the very low-end of the spectrum. I don't really see them being able to do much damage to anyone," Decker adds. "I think ISIS has a much greater capacity to carry out lone-wolf attacks in Europe, than it does to successfully carry out any form of cyber attack."
ISIS supporters shared the video on social media using the hashtag #HelloftheAmericansystem, which was widely derided by a number of social media users, with one Twitter user writing: "Was the #ISIS attack supposed to be 2pm Eastern Time or 2pm Medieval TIme? #HelloftheAmericansystem."
The video did not bear the hallmarks of previous videos released by ISIS, with no official insignia from the terror group's media wings and the figure in the video referring to the group by its acronym instead of the "Islamic State". The hackers' claim to be linked to ISIS could be not independently confirmed.
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