Cyberterrorism

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 3

CYBER ATTACKS AND EFFECTS 4

INDIVIDUAL PROTECTION 5

PAST INCIDENTS 6-7

ETHICS 8

EVALUATION 9

CONCLUSION 10

REFERENCES 11+

Introduction

Cyberterrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally

understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers,

networks, and the information stored therein. Possibly to intimidate, influence a

government or its people to further political or social gain. To qualify as

cyberterrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or

generate fear. Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, plane

crashes, water contamination, or severe economic loss would be examples, serious

attacks against important infrastructures could be acts of cyberterrorism,

depending on their impact. This report will illustrate and analyse the main issues

and ideas behind cyberterrorism. This will include information that has led to the

internet being used in a mailicous way, ethical issues, paradigms that

cyberterrorism follows, motivations and incidents that have occurred in the past.

One FBI spokespersons definition is-

'Cyber terrorism' means intentional use or threat of use, without legally

recognized authority, of violence, disruption, or interference against cyber

systems, when it is likely that such use would result in death or injury of a

person or persons, substantial damage to physical property, civil disorder, or

significant economic harm'.

Cyber attacks and effects

Cyberspace is constantly under assault. Cyber spies, thieves, saboteurs, and thrill

seekers break into computer systems, steal personal data and trade secrets,

vandalize Web sites, disrupt service, sabotage data and systems, launch computer

viruses and worms, conduct fraudulent transactions, and harass individuals and

companies. These attacks are facilitated with increasingly powerful and easy-to-use

software tools, which are readily available for free from thousands of Web sites on

the Internet. Many of the attacks are serious and costly. The ILOVEYOU virus for

example, was estimated to have infected tens of millions of users and cost billions

of dollars in damage.

In light of these serious threats from cyberspace, it is worth noting that the

discourse on cyberterrorism is something that - fortunately has not been

carried out in its most destructive capabilities. It is, therefore, desirable for the

governments of countries around the world to show credibly that cyberterrorism

does, indeed, exist and is highly probable to be the cause of more serious incidents

in the future.

Individual protection

Currently there are no foolproof ways to protect a system. The completely secure

system can never be accessed by anyone. Most government and militarie classified

information is kept on machines with no outside connection, as a form of prevention

of cyber terrorism. Apart from such isolation, the most common method of protection

is encryption. The wide spread use of encryption is inhibited by the governments ban

on its exportation, so intercontinental communication is left relatively insecure. The

American president administration team and the FBI oppose the export of encryption

in favour of a system where by the government can gain the key to an encrypted

system after gaining a court order to do so. Encryption's draw back is that it does not

protect the entire system, an attack designed to cripple the whole system, such as a

virus, is unaffected by encryption. Others promote the use of firewalls to screen all

communications to a system, including e-mail messages, which may carry logic

bombs or email bombs. Firewall is a relatively generic term for methods of filtering

access to a network. They may come in the form of a computer, router other

communications device or in the form of a network configuration. Firewalls serve to

define the services