Islamic terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, more commonly known as ISIS, has entered the Android chat marketplace with a new encrypted messaging app that they are able to use to plot their attacks on Western civilization.

The app, called Alrawi.apk, or just “the Alrawi app,” was discovered by online terrorist hunting organization the Ghost Security Group and offers basic encrypted communications features that are said to be rudimentary to Telegram or other more-company created ones, according to Defense One.

ISIS communications have long relied on encrypted online tools but have become more difficult for the group in recent months after services such as Telegram, Kik and WhatsApp begun to target and subsequently shut down accounts used by the terrorist group for communication; of note, after the Paris Islamic terrorist attacks in November, Telegram suspended 78 public ISIS-related channels in 12 languages.

Along with encrypted communications, Alrawi is also said to include features that allow users to securely swap messages and other digital communications, such as pictures, but perhaps more significantly for the group, these communications are away from services monitored by global security agencies.

This isn’t the first time ISIS has gone into the tools development field, however, with the terror group having previously launched an app called Amaq News to spread propaganda, and it is also said to have created a social network of its own called Kilafahbook, which is used to recruit new members.

Backdoors

News of an encrypted ISIS chat app comes at a time members of the United States administration, such as FBI Director James Comey, are calling for providers of end-to-end encrypted communications to put in backdoors into their services or face being banned.

Democrat candidate for the position of party nominee for the presidency of the United States, former Senator and First Lady Hillary Clinton has a supposedly more moderate line, instead calling for a “Manhattan Project” between Silicon Valley and security agencies to find a way to wave a magic wand and break encryption in what she doesn’t describe as a back door, but as we rightly pointed out, actually is by any other name.

The irony here, of course, is that backdoors, or magical Hillary Manhattan Projects, will not deliver access to communications from the ISIS app, but facts never get in the way when it comes to increasing the power of the Orwellian surveillance state all in the name of protecting citizens from terrorism.

Not surprisingly you won’t find ISIS’ Alrawi app on Google Play, but instead it can only be found on the Dark web.

Image credit: ISIS/unknown