Pierluigi Paganini
August 31, 2015
A spokesman for the US Central Command, Colonel Patrick Ryder, confirmed that the jihadist hacker Junaid Hussain was killed in a targeted air strike on August 24 in Raqqa, Syria.
Colonel Ryder hasn’t provided details on the air strike, he declined to confirm the involvement of a drone.
“He was involved in actively recruiting ISIL sympathizers in the West to carry out lone wolf style attacks,” explained Ryder, confirming that the man was the target of the air strike.
The US intelligence believes that the jihadist hacker is behind a number of cyber attacks, including the one that hit the Central Command websites and its Twitter accounts.
Ryder added that Hussain was responsible for “releasing personally identifying information of approximately 1,300 US military and government employees and specifically sought to direct violence against US service members and government employees.”
It is important to highlight that the information leaked online by Hussain about US military personnel was the result of OSINT activity and not of a data breach of any Pentagon system.
The military was considering the man very dangerous due to its cyber capabilities. Several times security experts warned of possible cyber attacks against US infrastructure, and jihadists with Hussain’s competencies could hit US systems at any moment.
“This individual was very dangerous,” said Ryder. “He had significant technical skills.”
According to prominent hackers affiliated with the terrorist group, the ISIS hackers have the abilities to hit computer systems in the US and Europe. A video released in May by the ISIS was threatening crippling cyber attacks against the Europe, United States, Europe and Australia. The terrorists claim to have the necessary cyber capabilities to spy on Western communications.
“The electronic war has not yet begun,” the pro-ISIS hackers boasted in their latest video threatening the cyberattacks.
Another US defense official declared that Hussain was not in the top ranks, other jihadists represent a danger to the US.
On September 11 214, Fox News reported that leaders of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Al Qaeda were stepping up efforts to seek a digital caliphate, speculating that one of the jihadist leaders, Hussain Al Britani, also known as Junaid Hussein, had allegedly hacked the Gmail account of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“Jihadists in the Middle East are ramping up efforts to mount a massive cyber attack on the U.S., with leaders from both Islamic State and Al Qaeda – including a hacker who once broke into former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Gmail account – recruiting web savvy radicals, FoxNews.com has learned.”
In 2012, Hussain was sentenced to six months in prison in Britain for this crime. The jihadist was also cited by two gunmen responsible of the terrorist attack in Garland, Texas. The two men invited via Twitter to follow Hussain.
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(Security Affairs – ISIS , Jihadist hacker Hussain)
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