UK confirms involvement in covert cyber operation against IS

The UK have used a range of cyber tactics in a covert operation to interfere with Islamic State’s (IS) technology and propaganda, reports Sky News.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, Commander of Strategic Command and Jeremy Fleming, GCHQ Director, spoke on Sky News’ ‘Into The Grey Zone’ podcast about the tactics used against IS throughout the operation.

Although the UK has acknowledged its use of cyber tactics against IS in the past, this kind of detailed explanation is one of the first of its kind.

Not only did the US and UK – alongside other allies – oversee the launch of physical campaigns against IS, throughout their operations they also reportedly: intercepted plans and thwarted IS-led drone attacks using cyber techniques; interrupted phone/laptop communication to confuse militants; disrupted IS online propaganda by working with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter; launched malware against specific computer servers across the globe.

“We have to defend it”

Mr Fleming said that the IS mission “sends a really strong signal that we and our allies were not going to leave cyberspace as an uncontested place.

“We have to defend it. We have to make sure it’s as secure as possible. We have to make sure that it is still underpinning our commerce, our economy, our society and our communities.

“But equally, when adversaries like Daesh (Islamic State) overstep the line, then they need to expect us to contest it, too.”

“We wanted to deceive them and to misdirect them”

“We wanted to ensure that when they tried to co-ordinate attacks on our forces, their devices didn’t work, that they couldn’t trust the orders that were coming to them from their seniors,” General Sanders added.

“We wanted to deceive them and to misdirect them, to make them less effective, less cohesive and sap their morale.

“But you can’t just do that in cyberspace. You have to co-ordinate and integrate that with activities that are going on on the ground, whether it’s from our own forces, special forces and others.”

To find out more information and to find a link to Sky News’ ‘Into The Grey Zone’ podcast, visit: https://news.sky.com