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(Bloomberg) — Britain carried out its first major cyber attack in 2017, disrupting ISIL’s communications and propaganda infrastructure for much of the year, one of Britain’s intelligence chiefs has revealed.

Jeremy Fleming, the director of GCHQ, which is better known for its communications interception work, said his agency had worked with the Ministry of Defence to make “a significant contribution to coalition efforts” against the al-Qaeda splinter group. He said that as well as making it “almost impossible” for the group to spread its message, the attack had protected forces on the battlefield.

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This is the first time the U.K. has systematically and persistently degraded anadversary's online efforts as part of a wider military campaign

Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA via AP

“This is the first time the U.K. has systematically and persistently degraded anadversary’s online efforts as part of a wider military campaign,” Fleming told a cybersecurity conference in Manchester, England, “Did it work? I think it did.”

He said other operations might “look to deny service, disrupt a specific online activity, deter an individual or a group, or perhaps destroy equipment and networks.”