Daesh has released its own secret app

Don't expect this one to show up in any "Most downloaded" roundups any time soon.

Daesh (the group more widely known as Islamic State) has released its own Android app in an effort to attract new followers to its cause and spread media materials via covert, encrypted channels.

The app software, discovered by 'hacktivist' organisation Ghost Security Group, isn't listed on Google's Play store, but is being spread by the propaganda-spreading Amaq News Agency through private messaging apps such as Telegram. The app offers Daesh followers a more secure network for sharing media and communications than the likes of Facebook and Twitter - channels recently targeted by Anonymous and numerous international security groups.

Posts on the app are said to include anti-Western messages and insights into life "inside the caliphate".

The use of the app apparently emerged in the weeks following the latest Paris attacks, as security groups set about identifying how the extremists had coordinated the attacks.

"They want to create a broadcast capability that is more secure than just leveraging Twitter and Facebook," said Michael Smith II, chief operating officer at Kronos Advisory, a defence consulting firm with links to the Ghost Security Group. "IS has always been looking for a way to provide easy access to all of the material.

"Increasingly what you will see is the focus on developing means to control the distribution of their materials on a global scale."

The use of apps like Telegram to spread knowledge of the app are will likely add considerable weight to the arguments of many governments that encrypted communication apps are inhibiting the fight against terrorism. 

[Via: Mirror]