Pro-Isis Hackers Threaten 'Electronic War' on US and Europe

Prominent hackers affiliated with the Islamic State group are threatening crippling cyberattacks against the United States, Europe and Australia, according to a new video released Monday. Hackers claimed their team has the ability to monitor all of the electronic devices and communications of Americans and Europeans.

“The electronic war has not yet begun,” the pro-ISIS hackers boasted in their latest video threatening the cyberattacks.

A group of hackers calling themselves the “Islamic State’s Defenders in the Internet,” also known as Cyber Caliphate, released the alleged video threatening cyberattacks, yet there is no evidence that the group is directly connected with the leaders of ISIS or ISIL overseas.

“Praise to Allah, today we extend on the land and in the internet. 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 video said with a distorted voice and picture of an Anonymous member. “What you have seen is just a preface of the future. 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.”

Cyber experts researching ISIS hackers have expressed doubt with the recent threats, stating the video aims to capitalize on the recent media attention payed to the hacker believed to be related to the ISIS attacks at a Garland, Texas shooting.

Tweets hours prior to the ISIS attack on American soil show a user known as, TriCk or Hussain, mentioning ISIS and supporting the recent public attack. Following Hussain’s set of tweets supporting the pro-ISIS attacks, British authorities claimed that the man is highly skilled and has managed to crack banking security systems in his past. Authorities also noted he is related to attacks against Sarah Palin, NASA, NATO, the United Nations, BlackBerry, and the English Defense League. The attacks listed above were credits of TriCk’s first group, TeaMp0isoN.

Following Cyber Caliphate’s new threat and their rival, Anonymous battling ISIS online has lead to an interesting view on social media. Many video viewers wrote off the video, noting the threats were “absurd.”

One ISIS researcher, J.M. Berger of the Brookings Institute said the style of the video is related to many previously ISIS-linked videos put out online. The recent video CyberCaliphate threw together aims to appear as a real ISIS threat.

“It suggests this may have been thrown together pretty quickly to exploit the publicity from Garland,” Berger said. “However the differences may also be intended to present more of a hacker façade.”

Since January, a group of ISIS-aligned hackers going by the name, Cyber Caliphate, have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks, their most prominent being when the group hijacked the CENTCOM Twitter and YouTube account, which they later abused to spread pro-ISIS messages. Following their attack, the group claimed to have compromised confidential files from the U.S. Army, though their later leaked documents were not so confidential at all.

The same hackers who posted the recent video threatening an Electronic War against the U.S., Europe and Australia are the same group that claimed to have confidential Army intelligence that was found widely available online.

Cyber Caliphate’s recent threat sounds extremely similar to the Anonymous hacking group’s threat back in April, where the collective vowed to wipe Israel from the Internet with an “Electronic Holocaust.” While the ISIS hackers call theirs an “Electronic War.”