The FBI opposes plan, wants to keep ISIS members safe online so they can spy on their movement and communications

Dec 22, 2015 13:44 GMT  ·  By

Sources inside the Pentagon are saying that the US military leadership is looking into developing and deploying custom malware specifically aimed at ISIS (Daesh, IS, ISIL) members as a way to sabotage their computers and counteract their online presence that has allowed them to constantly recruit new members.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that military cyber-experts have already created a few malware families at the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) in Fort Meade, Maryland.

Even if these viruses are ready to be deployed, the Pentagon has not yet decided if to actually use them, facing rising opposition from the FBI and other intelligence agencies.

The FBI would like more narrow and focused cyber-attacks instead

The FBI and its experts are claiming that, by sabotaging and taking ISIS members offline, their experts will lose valuable insight into ISIS' daily operations.

These very same arguments were also brought forward when members of the hacktivism group Anonymous started searching, reporting, and taking down ISIS Twitter and Facebook accounts, soon after the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks.

Instead of releasing malware blindly towards Syria's Internet connections and Web properties, the FBI proposes the usage of highly targeted cyber-attacks, focused on single individuals, which produce more accurate and efficient results.

FBI wants to stay on the defense, use cyber-offensive tools only when necessary

One such example is a case from early June, when US Air Forces were alerted to the presence of ISIS militants at a particular location through tweets sent out by one of the terrorists. This resulted in a targeted strike on that particular location, which led to the destruction of an ISIS base and the confirmed death of the Twitter blabbermouth terrorist.

Previously, the FBI and US law enforcement also made numerous arrests of ISIS-linked suspects inside US borders, all after monitoring online social media activity of known ISIS militants.

It may be understandable why the FBI and other intelligence agencies don't generally like the idea of sabotaging ISIS members and having them work offline or through other more covert communications channels.