International Cyber Terrorism

Cyberterrorism can be also defined as the intentional use of computers, networks, and
public internet to cause destruction and harm for personal objectives. Experienced
cyberterrorists, who are very skilled in terms of hacking can cause massive damage to
government systems, hospital records, and national security programs, which might
leave a country, community or organization in turmoil and in fear of further attacks. The
objectives of such terrorists may be political or ideological since this can be considered
a form of terror.
There is much concern from government and media sources about potential damage
that could be caused by cyberterrorism, and this has prompted efforts by government
agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to put an end to cyber attacks and cyberterrorism.
There have been several major and minor instances of cyberterrorism. Al-
Qaeda utilized the internet to communicate with supporters and even to recruit new
members. Estonia, a Baltic country which is constantly evolving in terms of technology,
became a battleground for cyberterror in April, 2007 after disputes regarding the
removal of a WWII soviet statue located in Estonia's capital Tallinn.
Overview
There is debate over the basic definition of the scope of cyberterrorism. These
definitions can be narrow such as the use of Internet to attack other systems in the
Internet that result to violence against persons or property. They can also be broad,
those that include any form of Internet usage by terrorists ro conventional attacks on
information technology infrastructures. There is variation in qualification by motivation,
targets, methods, and centrality of computer use in the act. U.S. government agencies
also use varying definitions and that none of these have so far attempted to introduce a
standard that is binding outside of their sphere of influence.
Depending on context, cyberterrorism may overlap considerably
with cybercrime, cyberwar or ordinary terrorism. Eugene Kaspersky, founder
of Kaspersky Lab, now feels that "cyberterrorism" is a more accurate term than
"cyberwar". He states that "with today's attacks, you are clueless about who did it or
when they will strike again. It's not cyber-war, but cyberterrorism." He also equates
large-scale cyber weapons, such as the Flame Virus and NetTraveler Virus which his
company discovered, to biological weapons, claiming that in an interconnected world,
they have the potential to be equally destructive.
If cyberterrorism is treated similarly to traditional terrorism, then it only includes attacks
that threaten property or lives, and can be defined as the leveraging of a target's
computers and information, particularly via the Internet, to cause physical, real-world
harm or severe disruption of infrastructure.
Many academics and researchers who specialize in terrorism studies suggest that
cyberterrorism does not exist and is really a matter of hacking or information
Page 22 of 174