ISIS fights BACK against Anonymous, tells followers to use self-destructing message app

Islamic State are fighting BACK after Anonymous declared WAR on the terror group

ISLAMIC STATE is encouraging followers to communicate through a hugely popular encrypted messaging app.

 

Islamic State, or ISIS, is encouraging its followers to only communicate with one another using a popular encrypted messaging app.

NewsNewsBlog.blogspot.com has chosen not to publish the name of the popular messaging app, which has more than 50 million users.

Amongst its features, the popular apps promises end-to-end encryption and the ability to make your messages self-destruct after they have been read.

 

The cross-platform service, available online and across all smartphone operating systems, was recommended by ISIS-associated social media accounts, reports The Daily Beast.

The extremists made the recommendation as part of a set of instructions to avoid being hacked – days after Anonymous declared WAR on the terror group.

ISIS also cautioned followers to never open URLs, unless they were sure of the source, and constantly change their IP address.

 

Senior Research Associate at Georgia State University noticed ISIS were using the app

Never talk to strangers on Twitter or on other messaging apps, the extremists warned.

The news comes after Anonymous vowed to "launch the biggest operation ever" against the Islamic State, following the terror attacks in Paris.

"Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down," the masked cyber activists promised in a sinister YouTube video.

Speaking from behind their trademark Guy Fawkes mask, Anonymous added: "You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.

"We will launch the biggest operation ever against you. War is declared. Get prepared."

 

In the past few hours alone, Anonymous has leaked personal information about ISIS supports, including names and addresses.

The cyber activists have also published a public guide to help anyone who wants to find and or hack a pro-ISIS websites.

The hacking group has also closed down 5,500 Twitter accounts.

However encrypted services which offer self-destructing messages – like the one recommend by ISIS-associated accounts – are extremely difficult to monitor.

CIA director John Brennan told a security conference in Washington earlier this week: "There are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now that make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence and security services to have the insight they need to uncover [terrorist activities].

"I do think this is a time for particularly Europe, as well as here in the United States, for us to take a look and see whether or not there have been some inadvertent or intentional gaps that have been created in the ability of intelligence and security services to protect the people that they are asked to serve."

 

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne this week announced plans to double the budget for cyber-security in the UK.

"ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes; for radicalisation, for operational planning too," George Osborne told the GCHQ.

"They have not been able to use it to kill people yet by attacking our infrastructure through cyber attack," he said. "But we know they want it and are doing their best to build it."

The Chancellor said public spending on cyber-security would be almost doubled to a total of £1.9 billion over the period to 2020.

 

Gunmen – each fitted with a suicide vest – targeted six different locations in central Paris

 

Terrorists attacked restaurants, cafes and a theatre where Eagles of Death Metal was playing

At the same time, Mr Osborne prepares to announce fresh overall spending cuts next week in a bid to return Britain to a budget surplus by the end of the decade.

Islamic State this weekend claimed responsibility for a series of orchestrated terror attacks in the French capital which claimed the lives of 129 people.

Gunmen – each fitted with a suicide vest – targeted six different locations in central Paris, including the Stade de France where president Francois Hollande was watching the national team play a friendly match against Germany.

Terrorists also attacked restaurants, cafes and the Bataclan theatre where rock band Eagles of Death Metal were perfuming to a sell-out crowd.