The US military is using hackers as a "weapon of war" to disrupt the activities of ISIS militants to communicate, direct troops, and provide services to its self-proclaimed state, according to a report from The Los Angeles Times.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told The Times that teams operating from Fort Meade, Md., recently "identified and jammed Islamic State online-communication networks" during a battle last week between ISIS and Kurdish forces attempting to retake the northeastern Syrian city of Shadadi.
"These are strikes that are conducted in the war zone using cyber essentially as a weapon of war," Defense Secretary Ash Carter told NPR on Sunday. "Just like we drop bombs, we're dropping cyber bombs."
With teams operating out of Fort Meade, Md. — the headquarters of the secretive National Security Agency — those "cyber bombs" are likely coming from the agency's top hacker unit, called Tailored Access Operations. Though the Times story did not confirm TAO's involvement, it said that Carter had ordered NSA Chief Adm. Michael Rogers to work together with US Central Command to hit ISIS networks.
It's a notable shift to offensive capabilities in the digital realm, away from the Pentagon's usual stance of just trying to defend against enemy hackers. In deploying cyber weapons to support targeted air strikes in Syria, this also seems to be the first known use of US government hackers in support of operations happening there on the ground.
Though there is some precedent: The US and Israel are widely believed responsible for infecting Iranian nuclear sites with the "Stuxnet" computer worm, which caused centrifuges to "tear themselves apart" in 2010. And in 2012, a former Marine ground commander in Afghanistan told a conference he used "cyber operations against my adversary with great impact."
"Cyber weapons and digital attacks are being integrated into the full spectrum of military operations," Adam Segal writes in his book, "Hacked World Order," which outlines how nation-states are increasingly using cyberspace as a new battlefield.
The cyber attacks on ISIS come at a time when the Pentagon ramps up its efforts in cyberspace after the release of a new cyber strategy in April 2015. In it, the military proposed 133 teams for its "cyber mission force" by 2018, 27 of which were directed to support combat missions by "generating integrated cyberspace effects in support of ... operations." (Effects is a common military term used for artillery and aircraft targeting, and soldiers proclaim "good effect on target" to communicate a direct hit).
