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CYBERCOM distrupting Islamic State communications, networks, says Carter
By: Molly Bernhart Walker
The U.S. military's Cyber Command has begun using cyber attacks to disrupt the Islamic State's ability to operate and communicate over the digital battlefield, said Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during a Monday press briefing.
The CYBERCOM-led campaign primarily aims to "cause them to lose confidence in their network, to overload their network so that they can't function and do all of these things that will interrupt their ability to command and control forces there," said Carter.
The defense secretary said the new cyber capabilities exceed the jamming used in traditional electronic warfare. While the goal is sometimes simply to disrupt, other times it's to disrupt with the goal of pushing the terrorist organization to other communication channels.
"We're trying to force them to make changes. We're trying to make them – disrupt their communications, and then we can anticipate some of the adaptations they're going to make and be a step ahead of them," said Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the press conference.
Dunford said that in the current engagement with the Islamic State, CYBERCOM is building an inventory of tools that other combatant commanders will likely benefit from in future campaigns.
"You can't replicate what we're doing today against ISIL in Iraq and Syria elsewhere in the world. What you can do is leverage the tools that have been developed for this particular operation, for other operations down the road," said Dunford.
Carter said just because the U.S. military is striking and seeing the effects of their cyber actions on the group doesn't mean the Defense Department will disclose its cyberattacks in the same way as it discloses airstrikes against the terrorist organization.
Carter said providing detail about current cyber operations would likely compromise operational security.
"We don't want the enemy to know when, where and how we're conducting cyber operations," echoed Dunford.
"We don't want them to have information that will allow them to adapt over time. We want them to be surprised when we conduct cyber operations," he said. "They're going to experience some friction that's associated with us and some friction that's just associated with the normal course of events in dealing in the information age. And frankly, we don't want them to know the difference. So they – it's to our advantage to maintain the element of surprise with regard to conducting cyber operations."
