Hacking ISIS: How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad

by Malcolm Nance, Chris Sampson, Ali H. Soufan (Foreword by)

Overview

This book is written by two of the leading terrorist experts in the world - Malcolm Nance, NBC News and MSNBC terrorism analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Defeating ISIS and the forthcoming Hacking ISIS, and Christopher Sampson, cyber-terrorist expert. Malcolm Nance is a 35 year practitioner in Middle East Special Operations and terrorism intelligence activities. Chris Sampson is the terrorism media and cyber warfare expert for the Terror Asymmetric Project and has spent 15 years collecting and exploiting terrorism media. For two years, their Terror Asymmetrics Project has been attacking and exploiting intelligence found on ISIS Dark Web operations.

Hacking ISIS will explain and illustrate in graphic detail how ISIS produces religious cultism, recruits vulnerable young people of all religions and nationalities and disseminates their brutal social media to the world.
More, the book will map out the cyberspace level tactics on how ISIS spreads its terrifying content, how it distributes tens of thousands of pieces of propaganda daily and is winning the battle in Cyberspace and how to stop it in its tracks.

Hacking ISIS is uniquely positioned to give an insider’s view into how this group spreads its ideology and brainwashes tens of thousands of followers to join the cult that is the Islamic State and how average computer users can engage in the removal of ISIS from the internet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510718920
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	04/25/2017
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Malcolm Nance is a globally recognized counterterrorism expert and Intelligence Community member who has been deployed to intelligence operations in the Balkans, Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. He is the author of The Plot to Hack America, Hacking Isis, and New York Times bestseller Defeating Isis. He appears regularly on MSNBC. Nance lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Chapter 1 The Keys to the Cyber Caliphate 1

Chapter 2 Understanding the Cyber Battlespace 12

Chapter 3 History of the Cyber Jihad 23

Chapter 4 The ISIS Cyber Hierarchy 32

Chapter 5 The ISIS Cyber Fighters 45

Chapter 6 Software of the Global Jihad 60

Chapter 7 Jihadi Cyber Warfare Units 80

Chapter 8 The Hackers, Wannabees & Fembots 111

Chapter 9 Jihadi Murder & Cyber Media 134

Chapter 10 ISIS Digital and Strategic Communications Tool Kit 176

Chapter 11 All Is Great in the Caliphate 181

Chapter 12 The Anti-ISIS Cyber Army 208

Chapter 13 Tracking ISIS in Cyberspace 233

Chapter 14 The Ghost Caliphate 244

Appendix A ISIS Magazine Issues 253

Appendix B Al-Hayat Video Database 256

Endnotes 260

Index 286

Editorial Reviews

Hacking ISIS, written by two of the world’s leading terrorist experts, brilliantly explains how ISIS recruits and brainwashes vulnerable people from around the world and how they spread its terrifying ideology. This book details a threat that affects us all and is a must read.” —Don. D. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of Inside SEAL Team Six “An authoritative, frightening who’s-who and what’s-what about the players, weapons, and battles in the shadowy cyber frontier of the war on terror.” —Fred Kaplan, author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War “Hacking ISIS is a deeply researched, meticulously detailed guide to how the world’s most reviled terrorist group has mastered the digital realm. An illuminating read for all who seek to understand and combat the scourge of violent extremism.” —Brendan I. Koerner, contributing editor at Wired and author of The Skies Belong to Us “Hacking ISIS is an excellent book and a perfect follow-up to Defeating ISIS. Nance and Sampson present—in a dynamic, detailed and gripping way—the unprecedented and severe challenges of the lethal combination of murderous terror inspired by extreme ideology blended with the proliferation of social media and advanced technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. —Avi Melamed, Salisbury Fellow of Intelligence and Middle East Affairs, the Eisenhower Institute and author of Inside the Middle East: Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth “Nance and Sampson detail the hidden, digital face of ISIS, its reach and successes as well as its crucial vulnerabilities. The book packages all of the electronic fronts, from Twitter and Facebook to secret web chats and forums, to the internal security databases built with Stasi-like obsessiveness by ISIS’ intelligence chiefs, most of them ex-Baathists. Readers will be struck by the determined progress of the Obama administration, which quietly and brutally squeezed ISIS, using captured hard drives and phones to assassinate key leaders and infiltrate the organization’s web activities. As the caliphate shrinks, the virtual jihad will swell, making this book a critical reference in plotting the way forward.” —Geoffrey Wawro, author Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East “Jihadists have been using the internet to recruit, fundraise, and radicalize followers for years. The emerging risk in terrorist use of the internet is ISIS and affiliated groups seeking to disrupt our critical infrastructure through digital attacks. Hacking ISIS is a great read on the history and ideology of these groups, and explores some of the options and actions to mitigate this growing threat.” —Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director, FBI (ret.)

“Hacking ISIS, written by two of the world’s leading terrorist experts, brilliantly explains how ISIS recruits and brainwashes vulnerable people from around the world and how they spread its terrifying ideology. This book details a threat that affects us all and is a must read.” —Don. D. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of Inside SEAL Team Six “An authoritative, frightening who’s-who and what’s-what about the players, weapons, and battles in the shadowy cyber frontier of the war on terror.” —Fred Kaplan, author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War “Hacking ISIS is a deeply researched, meticulously detailed guide to how the world’s most reviled terrorist group has mastered the digital realm. An illuminating read for all who seek to understand and combat the scourge of violent extremism.” —Brendan I. Koerner, contributing editor at Wired and author of The Skies Belong to Us “Hacking ISIS is an excellent book and a perfect follow-up to Defeating ISIS. Nance and Sampson present—in a dynamic, detailed and gripping way—the unprecedented and severe challenges of the lethal combination of murderous terror inspired by extreme ideology blended with the proliferation of social media and advanced technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. —Avi Melamed, Salisbury Fellow of Intelligence and Middle East Affairs, the Eisenhower Institute and author of Inside the Middle East: Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth “Nance and Sampson detail the hidden, digital face of ISIS, its reach and successes as well as its crucial vulnerabilities. The book packages all of the electronic fronts, from Twitter and Facebook to secret web chats and forums, to the internal security databases built with Stasi-like obsessiveness by ISIS’ intelligence chiefs, most of them ex-Baathists. Readers will be struck by the determined progress of the Obama administration, which quietly and brutally squeezed ISIS, using captured hard drives and phones to assassinate key leaders and infiltrate the organization’s web activities. As the caliphate shrinks, the virtual jihad will swell, making this book a critical reference in plotting the way forward.” —Geoffrey Wawro, author Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East “Jihadists have been using the internet to recruit, fundraise, and radicalize followers for years. The emerging risk in terrorist use of the internet is ISIS and affiliated groups seeking to disrupt our critical infrastructure through digital attacks. Hacking ISIS is a great read on the history and ideology of these groups, and explores some of the options and actions to mitigate this growing threat.” —Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director, FBI (ret.)

From the Publisher