Past Incidents Examples Of Cyder Terrorist Activity example essay topic

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 Cyber terrorism 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, 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, depending on their impact. This report will illustrate and analyse the main issues and ideas behind. This will include information that has led to the internet being used in a way, ethical issues, paradigms that 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, 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 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 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 militarize classified information is kept on machines with no outside connection, as a form of prevention of cyder 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 and access that are permitted to each user.

One method is to screen user requests to check if they come from a previously defined domain or Internet Protocol (IP) address. Another method put forward is to prohibit Telnet access intothe system. these methods are good in the short term but it must be assumed that a cyder terrorist will be able to think around these small draw backs, especially in the digital world. Past incidents Examples of cyder terrorist activity may include use of information technology to organize and carry out attacks, support groups activities and perception-management campaigns. Experts agree that many terrorist groups such as Osama bin Laden organization and the Islamic militant group Hamas have adopted new information technology as a means to conduct operations without being detected by counter terrorist officials.

Thus, use of information technology and means by terrorist groups and agents constitute cyder-terrorism. Other activities, which are richly glamorized by the media, should be defined as cyder crime. Some examples of in the past are; o In 1998, ethnic Tamil guerrillas swamped Sri Lankan embassies with 800 e-mails a day over a two-week period. The messages read, 'We are the Internet Black Tigers and we " re doing this to disrupt your communications'.

Intelligence authorities characterized it as the first known attack by terrorists against a country's computer systems. o During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, NATO computers were blasted with email bombs and hit with denial of service attacks by hacktivists protesting the NATO bombings. In addition, businesses, public organizations, and academic institutes received highly politicized virus-laden e-mails from a range of Eastern European countries, according to reports. Web defacement's were also common. o In 2000, the Asian School of Cyber Laws was repeatedly attacked by Distributed Denial of Service attacks by "h activists" propagating the "right to pornography". The Asian School of Cyber Laws has spearheaded an international campaign against pornography on the Internet. o In 2001, in the back drop of the downturn in US-China relationships, the Chinese hackers released the Code Red virus into the wild.

This virus infected millions of computers around the world and then used these computers to launch denial of service attacks on US web sites, prominently the web site of the White House. o In 2001, hackers broke into the U.S. Justice Department's web site and replaced the department's seal with a swastika, dubbed the agency the 'United States Department of Injustice' and filled the page with obscene pictures. o In the first six months of 2002 the hacker group GFORCE-Pakistan has conducted more than 150 reported cyder attacks against Indian targets to further its ideas on the Kashmir issue. In 2002, numerous prominent Indian web sites were defaced. Messages relating to the Kashmir issue were pasted on the home pages of these web sites. All of these acts are certainly breaking numerous cyder laws but whether these offences were acts of is a call of individual judgement, for this fact became the topic of much debate from security experts around the world. Ethics The ethical issues involved in cyder-terrorism are manifold.

Any sort of crime or ethical violation can occur using a computer. Extortion of banks takes money from the banks, as well as their customers. The bank's, on the other hand, violate the public trust that the bank will be secure. The illegal altering medical records is unethical, as it can quickly and easily cause harm to another. Spreading disinformation is unethical in its lack of regard for the truth, as well as for the safety of and consequences on others who believe the misinformation. Altering, destroying, or stealing others data is a violation of their privacy.

The ordinary hacker is guilty of lack of regard for the privacy of the peoples systems that he or she would enter. Hacking-for-hire is additionally illicit because they openly sell their services to break into others systems. All cyder crime is breaking with many ethics weather it be or breaking into someone's computer. In the end though these attacks will continue to go on, growing into a bigger problem as software becomes easier to obtain and implement. Evaluation It has been found by leading computer experts around the world that immediately accompany physical attacks, are increasing in volume, sophistication, and coordination, and are attracted to high value targets. These findings undoubtedly imply a higher likelihood for against the UN as a result of the ongoing War on Terrorism; however, they point out that there has actually been a very limited use of the Internet by known terrorist groups to wage attacks.

The terrorists' primary use of the Internet consists of formulating plans, raising funds, spreading propaganda, and communicating securely. This is soon to change though many experts have warned; terrorists are wielding the digital world with greater skill everyday. So many are now asking is the threat of the future? The convergence of current conventional wisdom's regarding technological and socio-political developments suggests that it may be. To its acolytes in the defence community, Information Warfare is the paradigm of future war. The convergence of these technological and socio-political trends suggests that may be the wave of the future.

If warfare is going to be conducted in cyberspace and if the combatants of the future are going to be irregulars, then is the logical paradigm of future conflict. Conclusion In conclusion, the violent pursuit of political goals using exclusively electronic methods is likely to be at least a few years into the future before used to its capacity. However, the more general threat of is very much a part of the digital world today. In addition to against digital data and systems, many people are being terrorized on the Internet today with threats of physical violence.

Online stalking, death threats, and hate messages are abundant. These crimes are serious and must be addressed. In so doing, governments around the world will be in a better position to police and respond to if and when the threat becomes imminent..