Anti-Terrorist Hacker Group Reveals 40 ISIS Websites Protected by US Tech Firm

The terrorist organization ISIS is known to promote its activities by exploiting the open nature of the Internet. This includes recruiting through social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and using sites like YouTube to publish propaganda videos.

ISIS terrorists parade down a street in Raqqa, Syria, on Jan. 14, 2014. ISIS Website via AP

The terrorist organization ISIS is known to promote its activities by exploiting the open nature of the Internet. This includes recruiting through social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and using sites like YouTube to publish propaganda videos. 

It also makes use of available Web services to guard its sites against cyberattacks and hide its locations.

According to information provided by anti-terrorist hacker group Ghost Security(GhostSec), close to 40 pro-ISIS websites are using the services of a Silicon Valley company called CloudFlare. CloudFlare is a content delivery network that provides services to speed up websites and render them virtually immune to distributed denial of service, or DDS, cyberattacks that can overload websites to bring them offline.

Among the sites, 34 are spreading propaganda, 4 are terrorist forums, and 2 offer technical services. A brief perusal of the sites showed they heap praise on ISIS, promote terrorist attacks, and some are used as chatrooms for extremists.

ISIS recruiters on social media often direct people to these websites, according to “WauchulaGhost,” a cyberoperations director with GhostSec.

GhostSec’s attempts to disrupt these sites have run into problems as ISIS recruiters have turned to Web services to block its efforts.

WauchulaGhost said CloudFlare hides the origin of the sites, and “with the site being ‘hidden’ it’s harder to be taken down, not only by us, but by our own government as well.”

Many online efforts used by ISIS go through open services, and this places providers of these services in a difficult spot. Sites like Google regularly index websites both good and bad, and ISIS terrorists can create new Facebook and Twitter accounts as quickly as they’re pulled offline.

According to CloudFlare spokeswoman Daniella Vallurupalli, they’re in a similar position. She said in an email that CloudFlare has more than a million customers, and close to 5,000 new sites register with its services each day.

Digital Counterterrorism

GhostSec is an affiliate of the Anonymous hacker collective. GhostSec launches cyberattacks against ISIS recruiting websites, and occasionally passes information on planned terrorist attacks to government agencies.

WauchulaGhost said when they find information on threats, they forward it to the government, yet noted they “do not work for the gov in any way shape or form.”

“We do this as a free service to not only the USA but to all countries of the world. Ghost Security’s mission is to eliminate the online presence of the Islamic State extremist group,” he said.

Earlier this year, their information helped thwart a planned ISIS terrorist attack in Tunisia, and may have stopped a similar attack on New York City.

The work that GhostSec is doing is ... making it harder for people to find ways to communicate with them. We are slowing down their communication process.

— 'WauchulaGhost,' cyberoperations director, GhostSec, anti-terrorism hacker group