A
new report from Trend Micro has lifted the lid on the homegrown and commercial tools used by terrorists to communicate and spread propaganda – with many of them also used by cyber-criminals.
With the emphasis on anonymity, many terrorist groups have adopted similar tactics to cyber-criminals, such as using DDoS mitigation tool Cloudflare to keep the IP address of propaganda sites hidden, the report claimed.
Trend Micro said it had also spotted terrorists sharing ‘anonymizing guides’ originally used by journalists and activists, detailing how to stay hidden online.
Communications methods include secure e-mail such as SIGAINT, Ruggedinbox, and Mail2Tor; underground forums, usually TOR-based or similar; and social media.
When it comes to IM, of the 2300 accounts studied by Trend Micro, one third (34%) used Telegram, followed by Signal (15%), WhatsApp (15%) and Wikr (14%).
Unsurprisingly, the file sharing and hosting services used by terrorists were mainly based in regions such as the Middle East – away from the reach of the NSA.
