Terrorism & Technology – II: Financing the fire

Varun Kapoor *

We saw in the last column how global terrorism propaganda, recruitment and training have been made easier and more potent as a result of the growing influence and spread of the digital world. With the commissioning of larger number of deeply radicalized cadres these terrorist organizations today are moving into a greater dominating role than before. The rapidly swelling ranks of such organizations is giving them greater freedom in carrying out one audacious and dastardly attack after another.

However for proper execution of their sinister plans, such terrorist organizations need a very important element – that is proper, regular and inexhaustible financial support. They already save a tidy sum of money that they had to earlier spend on radicalization and recruitment drives. As they have shifted these operations online – the cost for them has come down drastically.

The money saved is being pumped back by them in carrying out “hits” all over the world, with greater regularity and precision. In spite of this advantage gained by such groups – they still need a lot of money for smooth operational execution.

Where does this extra cash that is needed, come from? The answer is again through their activities in the cyber or digital world.

They have turned to hacking and other forms of cyber crime to fund their real world terrorist activities. It is indeed hard to imagine that international terrorist groups are carrying out cyber crime on hapless victims and the money they garner out of this is being funneled back to their parent outfit to create greater panic and fear through terrorism on the general public.

Thus the global citizens have to face a double damage in the form of dangerous cyber crime and deadly terrorism – all rolled in one! In June 2007, a UK terrorist cell was intercepted by the British police and three British nationals were charged with using the internet to incite murder.

Evidence collected showed that the three had used hacked credit card accounts to purchase goods to assist fellow jihadists – items such as night vision goggles’ GPS devices, airplane tickets and pre paid mobile phone cards – for the purpose of providing direct tactical support for terrorist operations. The trio made fraudulent charges totaling more than US$ 3.5 ( 22 Crores) million and were in possession of a database containing nearly 40,000 stolen credit card accounts!

As the technical hacking skills of the terrorist organizations increase, so too does the amount of ill gotten gains they are capable of generating online.

For example, in late 2011, police in the Philippines working with the American FBI uncovered an attempted telephone hacking scam against AT&T (US Telecom giant) customers that allegedly cost the company US$ 2 million ( 12 Crores) in written-off fraudulent charges. It was shockingly found that the Filipino hacking cell was working with Jamaah Islamiyah, which is a Filipino associate of the al-Qaeda.

Jamaah Islamiyah in turn was funneling this cyber crime money back to a Saudi Arabia based terror group that in turn funded the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group that was responsible for the deadly 2008 bombing siege that gripped the city of Mumbai ad killed and maimed hundreds!

Even the infamous Bali bombing mastermind, Imam Sumudra also from the alQaeda linked terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah, funded his attack in which more than 200 people lost their lives, with the US$ 150,000 obtained from hacking into Western bank accounts and credit lines. Samudra was technologically savvy and while in jail wrote a autobiographical manifesto containing a chapter titled “Hacking, Why not?”.

In the book Samudra shared his hacking and “carding” techniques with his disciples, encouraging them “to take the holy war into cyber space by attacking US computers, with the particular aim of committing the credit card fraud called carding”, to fund operations.

Terrorist organizations are getting the message as both the 2004 Madrid bombing at the Atocha train station, in which 190 people were killed and nearly 2,000 wounded as well as the London 7/7 bombing, in which 52 civilians were slain and over 700 injured, were funded in whole or in part through hacking and credit card frauds.

Thus cyber crime to fund more horrific and ruthless terrorist activity is on the increase. This money flow needs to be chocked by the international security agencies to insure not only a reduction in terrorist based violence but also the leapfrogging cyber crime, the world over.

Then and only then will we be able to provide a safe and secure environment for our citizens – to live, work and prosper in peace!


[Views expressed in the column are of the author himself]