CyberWarfare on the Web

In recent years, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook also have been used by Islamic State group fighters to navigate and coordinate their operations on the ground. Social media has been used by Hamas to determine how effective missile strikes on Israeli targets are.And then, of course, social media is an efficient means of spreading misinformation, a tool that has been used in wars for centuries. There are indications that Russia spends significant resources on misinformation campaigns targeting the United States. That pro-Putin comment below an online news article may seem like it was posted by an American, but may have been the work of a “Russian troll.”As New York Times writer Adrian Chen reported in June, there are entire buildings in Russia filled with employees who do nothing but feed the social media universe with misinformation. They even attempt to stir up panic situations, like the time these trolls faked a chemical leak in a town in Louisiana, causing needless alarm. These kinds of actions can have broad impacts. In 2013, the stock market plummeted temporarily and fear swept across social media after the Twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked and a bogus tweet reported that the president had been injured during a bomb attack on The White House. The state-sponsored hacker group The Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit.

Anonymous And Islamic State CyberWarfare

After the deadly terrorists attacks in Paris, the hacktivist network Anonymous declared war on ISIS. In a widely distributed video, a figure in a Guy Fawkes mask announced Operation Paris, or #OpParis, and promised the Islamist group that “Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down.”
So far, Anonymous’ much-hyped digital war has generated lots of headlines but not much in the way of impressive results. It’s been mostly focused on identifying ISIS-affiliated websites, Twitter accounts, and internet addresses and reporting them to Twitter and other webmasters in an effort to get them shut down. Shortly after OpParis launched, Anonymous claimed to have helped get 5,500 ISIS Twitter accounts taken down, a number that ballooned to 20,000 by last Friday. An unnamed Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Dot that Anonymous’s claims are “wildly inaccurate.”
“In terms of effectiveness, I think all they can do is make a small dent,” saysGabriella Coleman, an anthropologist and the author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. “Since they started, ISIS’s online presence hasn’t really shrunk or grown. It doesn’t really matter if there is a small dent. ISIS, unlike Al Qaeda, has been really savvy with online propaganda.” Last week, ISIS posted a message on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, calling the hacktivists “idiots” and offered an online security guide for their sympathizers. Noting that Anonymous had only gone after Twitter accounts, the message joked, “What they gonna hack?”

North Korea Cyber Attack on Sony

ony Pictures Entertainment is hacked. Employees are locked out of their computer network and glowing, red skeletons appear on their screens. An accompanying message says they’ve been “Hacked by #GOP” and all of their internal data have been obtained and can be shared. In the days that follow, personal information, e-mails and unreleased movies like Still Alice, Annie and To Write Love on Her Arms are leaked online.
Some speculate that North Korea is behind the attack because Sony’s upcoming comedy The Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, is about an assassination attempt on Kim Jong Un.

A screen shot of an image that appeared on computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment on Nov. 24, 2014. (Photo: Reddit)