Pentagon admits it is 'looking to accelerate' cyberattacks against ISIS

The Pentagon has acknowledged using its storehouse of new digital weapons to attack Islamic State communications networks, the first time that the US military has acknowledged doing so during an active war. Operators from the US Cyber Command, the young military command twinned to the National Security Agency, have launched assaults on nodes, overloading them with data, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said. Sec Carter said the US was “looking to accelerate” cyberstrikes he likened to the traditional disruption of enemy command networks. The US cyberattacks, which Sec Carter said complemented familiar methods of signal jamming over radio frequencies, seek to instill a loss of confidence in the security and efficacy of internal Isis communications. Analysts who have long tracked the development and incorporation of digital weapons into the US military arsenal considered Sec Carter’s acknowledgment to be a milestone.