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We're dealing with an enemy now, ISIS, that has a very sophisticated social media program.

Social media has allowed groups, such as ISIL, to use the Internet to spot and assess potential recruits. With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can identify vulnerable individuals of all ages in the United States - spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize - either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack.

Law enforcement has seen an unprecedented use of social media by ISIL. They're just kind of flooding the airwaves.

Further, the next generation of terrorists will grow up in a digital world, with ever more powerful and easy-to-use hacking tools at their disposal.

To a considerable extent we are faced by a technology arms race with terrorists. The communications revolution has made it easier for terrorist groups to reach out to vulnerable individuals with their violent extremist ideology and propaganda. It has also facilitated fundraising, recruitment and training.

The Internet plays an ever more significant role in the sedulous promotion of terrorism. We know that in the U.K., groups gather to view the preaching of violent men located many thousands of miles away and that this does have a powerful effect on young minds.

Some of the people involved in ISIS are going to Iraq, and some of our young people are being radicalised through the Internet.

Cyber terrorists are no different from other terrorists: No matter where they hide, we will track them down and seek to bring them to the United States to face justice.

Unfortunately, we have seen terrorist groups use social media to spread hateful propaganda, to recruit members, and to incite violence with alarming effectiveness.

The benefits of our increasingly digital lives have been accompanied by new dangers, and we have been forced to consider how criminals and terrorists might use advances in technology to their advantage.