From 2018, members of the coalition fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria confirmed that they had been conducting offensive cyber activities as part of the campaign in an operation given the codename GLOWING SYMPHONY.[1] While the details of these operations largely remain highly classified, they are the first example of states publicly admitting to such operations during armed conflict. They are also notable as while Fleming in his speech cited above emphasized that the UK effort resulted from cooperation between its signals intelligence (SIGINT) agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence (MOD), one of the other partners, Australia, emphasized the role of civilian personnel from its SIGINT organization, the Australian Signals Directorate. This was arguably the first public recognition of the extent to which, at least in some states, intelligence organizations and the military were entwined in the conduct of contemporary offensive cyber operations.
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