Foreword

by Ali H. Soufan

Hacking ISIS is a critical book on the dynamics of the cyber caliphate for all cyber warriors. It is a timely book, as ISIS is collapsing and its physical caliphate is passing into history. The potential for a new cyber-based world, a Ghost Caliphate, will definitely allow a physically defeated force to rise from the ashes as a cyber-warfare force.

Malcolm Nance, one of the world’s top terrorism intelligence professionals, and Chris Sampson, a terrorism cyber media expert who has studied ISIS and al-Qaeda for more than eleven years, have produced a brilliant resource to educate cybersecurity specialists, politicians, and the general public about the future risks of how ISIS’s ideology may spread further in the cyber world. Malcolm and his team have engaged and destroyed ISIS’s cyber warriors in direct and indirect cyber combat. Though the ISIS warriors are amateur and young, and generally limit their work to propagating their hateful ideology, they have the basic skills to expand from a general nuisance into a credible threat so long as we ignore their potential. As we continue to take this fight with this terrorist enemy to the electronic battlefield, this book will help our cyber warriors and decision-makers defeat them once and for all.