This talk is part of a two-presentation session running from 4:10 PM - 5:00 PM. The session will feature two presentations back-to-back, with Q&A after each presentation.

With much attention focused on terrorist exploitation of new technologies such as Generative AI, there is a profound risk that counterterrorism officials and practitioners ignore the continued use by violent actors of long-standing digital technologies. Many such vectors of exploitation are decades-old and familiar both to terrorists and to those seeking to undermine their activity. Despite this, an often-haphazard response from the private and public counterterrorism world has ensured that for many terrorist groups the old ways are the most consistently reliable for operational planning or disseminating narratives.

In this session, Tech Against Terrorism will explore the means by which terrorists leverage digital technologies old and new to propagandise, plan, and recruit online. We will explore the continued proliferation of terrorist content via a range of 'Web 2.0' technologies including social media platforms and messaging apps, and highlight the opportunities and challenges around disrupting Terrorist-Operated Websites (TOWs). Finally, we will reflect on our open-source intelligence and data-driven investigations into how emerging threats such as Generative AI offer a small but growing potential for terrorists to enhance and expand - if not entirely change - their online TTPs.