“If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.”
~ Bruce Schneier
On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and 24 injured during a Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators were an American born, United States citizen of Pakistani-descent, Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands. Since there are currently no known links to any terrorist cell, this attack appears to have been an Islamic extremist (i.e. Islamist) inspired, lone wolf terrorist attack, which was crowdsourced through the Internet. This was the third deadliest terrorist attack on United States soil since September 11, 2001.
Two weeks later, the San Bernardino attack influenced the shut down of the entire Los Angeles school district when they received a bomb threat that had been emailed to the two largest school districts in the US: New York and Los Angeles. New York chose not to respond mostly because of the lack of proximity of the San Bernardino event. It is important to note however that this threat could have been a physical world penetration test, meant to gauge the emergency action protocols for both districts in order to help plan for future terrorist plots.
Since the Internet gained almost global usage in the 1990s, Islamists have exploited its networks. Islamist propaganda and recruitment attempts are pervasive on the Internet, both via indexed and non-indexed sources. This allows Islamists to easily and effectively spread their violent extremist ideology worldwide, to potentially every node/person on the global network. With the ability to access the Internet, Islamic extremists are able to utilize all of the social media tools that allow people to create, share or exchange information, ideas and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks. However the Internet is not just used for publicizing their extremist narratives or indoctrinating new jihadists. Islamic terrorists from all areas of the world use the Internet as a median to gather intelligence, coordinate logistics, conduct reconnaissance (“footprinting” when gathering information about computer systems), mapping targeted locations, flight training, improvised explosive devise (IED) assembly training and the list goes on and on. The Internet is also used to train, fundraise and recruit.
The so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Qa‘ida are increasingly using the Internet and social media as a platform to broaden their audience and to indoctrinate/convert more people to their extremist ideologies.