On August 19th, 2011, the San Jose Mercury News reviewed a new book which detailed how the U.S. military has both hacked and temporarily disabled Iraqi insurgent and terrorist-based websites. The book, titled "Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al-Qaeda," explores the US government's seldomly discussed offensive cyber capabilities. The book's disclosures contrast with the Pentagon's publicly described strategy of improving defenses instead of threatening retaliation.
The Pentagon recently released its "Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace," which outlines five "strategic initiatives." The authors write that the strategy was silent on the capability to review and approve selective U.S. attacks. The authors go on to say that proposals for attacks are reviewed by a "powerful board of governors assigned to oversee counterstrikes on the Internet," under a "three-way agreement" among the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and the Justice Department "for considering timely attacks on terrorist websites, with the president making the final decision on whether to proceed."
The article goes on to explain how U.S. intelligence officers "webspoofed" jihadists by infiltraing networks to post their own materials; the agencies forged al-Qaida "web watermarks" that made the messages posted to the jihadist sites seem official. Further, the U.S. military has the ability to hack into jihadist cell phones and "text message guys telling them another guy is cheating you out of money." US officials also devised a method to jam insurgent radion networks and send "counterprogram" coalition messages in their stead.
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