ISIS hackers poor at coding, says researcher

Security researcher Kyle Wilhoit has claimed that hackers working for ISIS are poor at coding and therefore bad at hiding what they do. Speaking at security conference DerbyCon, Wilhoit said that ISIS is ‘really, really bad at the development of encryption software and malware’, meaning that poor IT skills have caused the terrorist group to switch to online services and the dark web for attack code. Wilhoit, a cyber security researcher at Domain Tools, analysed three separate types of tools created by hackers who were part of what is known as the United Cyber Caliphate (UCC) - a group of 17 hacker groups that had declared their support for ISIS. He found that the group's malware was full of basic bugs, that a secure email system it developed leaked information about users and that he UCC's web attack tool failed to take down any significant target.