Afghanistan witnessed major developments and growth opportunities in the last two decades. The technology industry flourished with 12.8 million Afghan internet users as of 2021 as compared to barely having 1000 users in 2001. While the country was making technological advances, the Taliban kept pace with its evolving technology, too. Their digital footprint can be traced back to 2005-06 when they launched their multi-lingual website.
Though the Taliban banned TV, music and art during the 1990s rule, they have embraced the technological advances today. “They learnt quickly that the war against the Americans had to be fought on many fronts,” said Ahmed Rashid. Taliban understand the power of social media and how their presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter can fuel their agenda to seize control of Afghanistan.
Today, the 20-year western mission to Afghanistan has collapsed and the Taliban are in control over again, post the U.S. troops retreat. The world is closely watching their steps both on the ground and via social media. This crisis can take multiple forms from here, one of them anticipated to be the inception of cyber threats.
How will the Taliban use the power of technology now?
Tech-Savvy Taliban
Reportedly, the Taliban fighters blew up the fibre optic devices in Herat province’s Islam Qala as they captured the area last week. While they used night-vision technology in the group’s latest high-tech assault. These incidents seem to be just the outset of future technology-based attacks.
Back in 2014, the now-deposed Afghanistan government came up with the National Cybersecurity Strategy of Afghanistan. Based on ITU’s cybersecurity guidelines, the strategy had established safe and secure cyberspace for government and businesses so far. Now, with the Taliban ruling the country, the same sensitive data and information can be used for malicious activities.
Though the US data was mostly in the cloud, it doesn’t guarantee leak-free security that cannot be hacked by the tech-savvy Taliban. It is highly certain that the delicate information the US shared with the Afghan government is now in Taliban control. In the past, they have regularly changed their website addresses to corrupt links or other websites. And often threatened to attack mobile phone operators’ towers and offices.
On the other hand, the Taliban long adapted to the modern, Russian-style information warfare model to spread its messages via bots and fake accounts. This might be the right time for them to ramp up the propaganda for purposes like recruiting, financing, training, and gathering and dissemination of information for terrorist purposes.
However, the official website of the Taliban, earlier protected by CloudFlare, went offline on Friday, 19th August. Also, various WhatsApp groups were shut down according to SITE Intelligence Group, a company monitoring online extremism. Though Twitter still allows several official Taliban accounts, Facebook banned them earlier for not adhering to the U.S. sanctions laws. Such irregularities in online activities will be the new challenge for big US tech companies to determine the next steps of the Taliban.
Time will tell if Afghanistan will become a facilitator in cyberattacks against the west. As their extremist methods raise significant questions, the next steps of the Taliban are to be closely watched by many in the cybersecurity world.
