Officials say digital weapons miss mark against ISIS militants

Cyberattacks yield only temporary results at disrupting terrorists

WASHINGTON — America’s fast-growing ranks of secret cyberwarriors have in recent years blown up nuclear centrifuges in Iran and turned to computer code and electronic warfare to sabotage North Korea’s missile launches, with mixed results.

But since they began training their arsenal of cyberweapons on a more elusive target, internet use by the Islamic State, the results have been a consistent disappointment, U.S. officials say. The effectiveness of the nation’s arsenal of cyberweapons hit its limits, they have discovered, against an enemy that exploits the internet largely to recruit, spread propaganda and use encrypted communications, all of which can be quickly reconstituted after U.S. “mission teams” freeze their computers or manipulate their data.

It has been more than a year since the Pentagon announced that it was opening a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing Cyber Command, then 6 years old, to mount computernetwork attacks. The mission was clear: Disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, pay fighters and circulate orders from commanders.

But after the recent attacks in Britain and Iran claimed by the Islamic State, it has become clear that recruitment efforts and communications hubs reappear almost as quickly as they are torn down.

Even one of the rare successes against the Islamic State belongs at least in part to Israel, which was America’s partner in the attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines.

The Islamic State’s agenda and tactics make it a particularly tough foe for cyberwarfare. The jihadis use computers and social media not to develop or launch weapons systems but to recruit, raise money and coordinate future attacks.

Such activity is not tied to a single place and the militants can take advantage of remarkably advanced, low-cost encryption technologies. The Islamic State, officials said, has made tremendous use of Telegram, an encrypted messaging system developed largely in Germany.

The most sophisticated offensive cyberoperation the United States has conducted against the Islamic State sought to sabotage the group’s online videos and propaganda beginning in November, according to U.S. officials.

In the endeavor, called Operation Glowing Symphony, the National Security Agency and its military cousin, U.S. Cyber Command, obtained the passwords of several Islamic State administrator accounts and used them to block out fighters and delete content. It was initially deemed a success because battlefield videos disappeared.

But the results were only temporary. U.S. officials later discovered that the material had been either restored or moved to other servers.

The shortcomings of Glowing Symphony illustrated the challenges confronting the government as it seeks to cripple the Islamic State in cyberspace.