14 DAY TRIAL // A cyber attack carried out by unknown hackers crippled al-Qaida's Internet communication channels used to distribute videos and messages online.
According to NBC News, the disruption was spotted by Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who has been tracking the organization for over a decade.
"Al-Qaida's online communications have been temporarily crippled, and it does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the Internet," the expert said.
"My guess is that it will take them at least several days more to repair the damage and get their network up and functioning again," he added.
According to him, the attack was well coordinated and involved a series of sophisticated techniques that suggest the involvement of a government.
This wouldn't be the first time when government-sponsored hackers target the online assets of the world's best known terrorist organization.
The Washington Post recently reported that last year, British intelligence agents, most likely from the UK Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), attacked an al-Qaida digital magazine called Inspire.
The first issue of the English-language magazine destined for Western Islamists was supposed to contain an article called "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," however, when it got published the instructions appeared as garbled data.
The data was actually a cupcake recipe inserted by British government hackers. The event cost the magazine's publishers a lot of credibility and spread panic amongst readers who thought it was a virus.
It's not clear who carried out this recent attack or what was their intended goal, but spreading fear and doubt among al-Qaida supporters might be one possibility. The other is cyber espionage, if the hackers managed to penetrate the organization's network and stole data before crippling it.