Discovery of cyberwar app leads experts to believe ISIS may attempt to shut down the Internet

(Cyberwar.news) Are hackers for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria attempting to shut down the Internet? Some cyber security experts think so after discovering a cyberwarfare app this month, Inquisitr reports.

Cyber security experts discovered an ISIS app “commonly used by the terrorist group” that might have been “the cause of a significant hack on the core operating infrastructure that took place in early December,” the web site reported.

The ISIS Amaq Agency app may been behind a bot that was used to launch a “distributed denial of services,” or DDoS attack, on root server names earlier in December.

Indeed, some cybersecurity experts think that if a similar and even more powerful attack of this nature occurred in the future, not only would that produce major disruptions of serve but the entire Internet could feasibly be taken offline, at least for a time.

As Inquisitr reported further:

The internet cyber attack tentatively attributed to ISIS hackers occurred between November 30 and December 1, according to MSN. Notable hackers, cybersecurity experts, and members of the Anonymous “hacktivist” community agree that ISIS hackers used the Amaq Agency smartphone app to intentionally target a total of 13 root name servers that are reportedly at the heart of internet infrastructure.

According to Anonymous hacktivists, the Amaq Agency app appears to be the most likely cause of the cyber attack that flooded internet servers with about five million queries each second during the attack’s peak. The hacking experts believe that it only took around 18,000 smartphones running the ISIS app at the same time to generate the massive amount of Internet traffic needed to disrupt the system.

“I feel certain that the IS news app was the source of the DDoS attack. One of my researchers has discovered encrypted packets being sent to the Amaq Agency news app,” cyber security expert and anti-virus software creator John McAfee said during an interview with the International Business Times UK.

“We found the 13 Root Server Addresses in the app memory while the app was running. The addresses did not appear inside the static app. The addresses therefore had to be decrypted at run time,” he continued. “Why would they encrypt the addresses inside the app unless they were trying to hide the true purpose of the app? This is the smoking gun we were looking for.”

The ISIS Amaq Agency app is believed to have been developed by technology experts at the Islamic State headquarters in Raqqa, Inquisitr reported.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that McAfee says World War III could actually consist of a cyberwar with ISIS that the West would likely lose or, at the very least, lose a lot more.

“Our arsenal of bullets, bombs, tanks, planes, boats, missiles and our nuclear capabilities are rivalled by few, and likely exceeded by none,” he said.

“None of this matters in a cyber war – a fact that could damage us when our weapons and equipment are turned against us using computers,” he continued. “We are living in a doomsday machine of our own design – one that when activated will make the Battle of Antietam look like a Sunday picnic.”

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See also:

Inquisitr

Cyberwar.news

Daily Mail