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 Asked whether the Sunni Muslim group was planning cyber attacks on
U.S. interests, Admiral Mike Rogers said he could not discuss
specifics of the organization's technical capabilities.
"We need to assume that there will be a cyber dimension increasingly
in almost any scenario that we're dealing with," Rogers said at a
cybersecurity conference in Washington.
"Counterterrorism is no different. Clearly, ISIL has been very
aggressive in the use of media, in the use of technology, in the use
of the Internet. It's something I'm watching," he said, using an
acronym for the group.
Islamic State, which controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria, has
posted carefully choreographed beheading videos online, trumpeted
its violent acts on Twitter and used social media to recruit foreign
Islamists to the fight.
"Its public messaging and social media is as slick and as effective
as any I've ever seen from a terrorist organization," Homeland
Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York last week.
The group's capabilities beyond using YouTube and Facebook are less
clear.
Cybersecurity expert James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies said he did not think Islamic State posed any
immediate cyber threat to American interests.
"They'd need a connection to the Syrians, Iranians or the Russians,
and that's unlikely to happen," Lewis said. "They're also nuts and
cyber doesn't scratch the itch."
While there may be no imminent or specific cyber threat from Islamic
State, there is a wide-ranging intent to damage the West, a
congressional aide said. Different jihadist groups have talked about
launching cyber attacks and it may be just a matter of time before
they find someone capable of doing it, the aide said on condition of
anonymity.
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Rogers, speaking generally on how cybersecurity threats are
proliferating across all aspects of American life, said: "There is
nothing but increased activity out there."
As Pentagon officials told Congress on Tuesday they were preparing
for a longer-term campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq,
Rogers said cyber defense was a long-haul effort.
The U.S. Cyber Command he leads hopes to have 6,200 cyber employees
by 2016 to detect and deflect such threats, and Rogers urged greater
cooperation on cybersecurity between government, business and
industry.
"There are a lot of groups out there - individuals, nation-states -
who feel that this is an area worth investing in, because it
achieves positive outcomes for them if they can penetrate systems,"
Rogers said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit.
"This is not a small problem and it's not one that's going to go
away."
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Diane
Craft)
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