LANDPOWER MAGAZINE SPRING 2017 | Page 29

Hacking for the Caliphate
2016 , though it remains to be seen whether this will help coordinate its efforts . The move , amid other changes , makes it " a growing threat " that could possibly lure other skilled hackers to its ranks .
Since groups merged into the UCC , other pro-DAESH hackers have joined it . Last December in 2016 , the UCC released an audio speech , accompanied with statements in English , announcing that fellow pro-DAESH hacking group the “ Cyber Kahilafah ” had joined its ranks and “ Kill lists ” would soon be published .
On July in 2016 , an on-line magazine provided some biography clues about Junaid Hussain , stating that he grew up in Birmingham , England .
It was his alter ego , " Trick ," who grew up on the internet and that his start in hacking came from being hacked himself ; in a video game he was playing online when he was 11 . Hussain himself once stated : " I randomly got hacked by this kid , I wanted revenge so I started Googling around on
how to hack ," he told the website Softpedia in 2012 . He found hacking forums , tutorials , and tools online , and at 15 he started his own hacking group , Team Poison .
This team used simple methods to take over social-media accounts or deface websites . Trick ' s teenage mind saw what he was doing as a form of activism , a way to support Palestinian and Kashmiri people he felt were being oppressed .
Team Poison certainly raised its own profile , claiming a hack of Mark Zuckerberg ' s Facebook page , NATO , the British Ministry of Defense , and even leaking the private address book of Tony Blair , according to Vanity Fair . Even the hacker collective Anonymous cheered them on .
It is likely Anonymous cheer them on for what the UCC managed to do , considering it a great feat . Anonymous hacking group has hacked DAESH accounts a number of times .
It was like this , that he would transition from Trick , the hacktivist , to the leader of the DAESH hacking wing , renaming himself as Abu Hussain Al-Britani . Released from prison on bail in 2013 , he would soon find his way to Raqqa , Syria . He brought with him skills and the view that defacements could raise awareness — only this time , it would be for the world ' s most notorious terrorist group .
" He ended up joining DAESH and became their main hacker ," Kennedy , an ex- US Marine and Trusted Security Company CEO said .
Though Hussain ' s emergence in Syria brought DAESH a hacking presence it never really had , the group was then , and remains , disorganized . It suffered from conflicting messaging and often uncoordinated actions among five different hacking groups claiming the DAESH banner , according to a report from Flashpoint .
On 27 August in 2015 , “ The Guardian ” on-line edition echoed about the fact that
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