Cyber Terrorism - Term Paper Example

Cyber terrorism Over the past years, war has been used as a tool to determine who the real super power in theworld is. This war involves the use of different weapons, which evolves as technology grow. For instance in World War 1, the weapons used ranged from machine guns to pistols, bayonets, mined, barbed wires and flamethrowers. In world war two, nations developed sophisticated weapons such as armored tanks, fighter jets, submachine guns and atomic bombs. This kind of war caused physical damage such loss of lives, destruction of buildings and property and even wide spread of genetic disorders and mutations especially in areas affected by the atomic bombs. The modern war has evolved and interwoven into what is now popularly known as cyber terrorism. This paper seeks to explain and describe in details the real cyber terrorism by highlighting major incidence of these attacks in America’s history as well as the measures taken to mitigate such attacks to avert the devastating financial losses that accompany such attacks in America. With the wide spread of technological advancement, there came growth in information technology infrastructure. This great change was highly welcomed by many and they embraced it thus reducing the world into a small-interconnected village. United States of America diversified its surveillance and did everything possible to prevent terrorism especially after the 9/11 attacks. It pumped great resources and time into the military and greatly advanced its machines of wars. They invented several weapons of war such as missiles and drones to fight terrorism and protect its citizens. This made it to retain its title as the world’s most military advanced nation since the end of the world wars. As America pumped resources into equipping its military so did their enemies but in a more clever and interesting way. Since terrorist groups found it hard to attack Americans on American soil, they found another way of attacking America. They sought to use America’s strength to try to sink it, especially its giant technological strength. They knew that America was well advanced technologically and that they digitalized almost all their activities .This strength was used as a leeway to this great nation. This led to one of America’s greatest thorn in the flesh- cyber terrorism. It refers to the use of the internet by terrorists e.g. sending mails to real criminal cases, which result into virtual or physical loss (Council of Europe, 4). It may also be defined as vandalism, intimidation or coercing people to do things against their will or purchase products offered to them, (Bidgoli, 21). In this case, the attacks are not politically motivated but are an effort of certain individuals to instill fear and force others to do what they want. Or else damage their reputation. Some researchers argue that cyber terrorism is not real and that it is just one of America’s ways to seek sympathy or others even go ahead and say it’s a means used by this country to instill psychological torture and among its citizens. Others reveals that it is a means used to create job opportunities by certain companies in America by creating a virus and spreading it then creating an anti-virus for the same to profits. These claims have been disputed by scholars who claim that the attack have become one of those that no one knows who is likely to conduct the attack (faceless terrorism). They alos lack knowledge of when they will occur does not make the fact less real. Lech (15), posits how and why these cyber terrorist attack. Just like the way terrorist inflict fear among people when they physically attack a place through bombing they instill the same fear when they undertake cyber-attacks. Instead of making people fear a particular place, which they have bombed, cyber terrorists inflict fear in the computer technologies. Secondly, the speculator factor is a vital element to consider. They always make sure their attacks are speculative in nature. This means that the targeted organization or institution should incur direct huge losses or suffer negative publicity. For instance, Amazon.com website was shut down in 1999 due to Denial of Service (DOS) attack. This cost it very huge losses but the worst part was the negative publicity the attack created. Then there is the vulnerability factor. In this case, the aim of the terrorist is to expose the vulnerability of the targeted organization. They achieve this by causing denial of service to the commercial sever or simply defacement of the institutions website something commonly referred to as computer graffiti. There is a very high correlation between cyber and corporeal attacks. Any expert specializing in combating cyber-attacks should be very keen to spot such events in the economy. For instance, physical attacks are always followed by cyber-attacks. This was evidently seen with the increase in cyber attacks after the Pakistan and Indian conflict, the Israel and Palestine wars .Secondly these attacks always aim at organizations or institution representing high publicity value. This includes government offices, administrative and military units as well as dominant multi nationals or corporations. It has also been established that these attacks have clear political/terrorism motive. The major issues of national security in America. Scholars despute this fact and argue that the fact . There have been several cases of cyber terrorism in America and all over the world as a whole. For instance in 1999 a Florida man was charged for using the internet to threaten the reputation of some six young women if they do not engage in phone and cyber-sex with him. There is no political motive but just an individual’s selfish desire to meet his own needs. Project chaology involved an attempt to remove an article about one of the members of the church of scientology that was published in the internet. This is also an attack that was not politically motivated or orchestrated by terrorist groups but still constitute cyber terrorism. There have been far worse cyber attacks in America. For instance, the attack on PayPal in December 2010. This happened after it blocked WikiLeaks accounts, which they used to raise funds citing the violation of the acceptable use of policy (Balkhi, 2). Some may argue that this was a home-orchestrated attack but with cyber terrorism, it is hard to determine who really carried out the attacks. Secondly, there is the cyber-attack on Citigroup- one of the biggest financial giants in the world. Here, over 200,000-customer information was compromised resulting in billions of losses to the company. Thirdly, there is also the cyber-attack on the presidential election of 2008 between Barack Obama and John McCain. The electronic devices and systems used in the campaign were hacked and sensitive emails and campaign strategies compromised. Others may say this was to destabilize and question the credibility of the elections. One of the costliest cyber-attacks in history is the attack on Epsilon- the world’s largest provider of marketing and handling services. The damages ranged from $225 million to $4 billion dollars. The most recent attack that happened in 2011was on Sony. This is where 77million of play station Network and Sony Online Entertainment accounts, including credit and debit cards and debit card information of users were stolen. Ascertaining the real culprit of this act was very hard. This even led to the leaking out of a movie that was to be released in the market. This resulted in not just the exposure of embracing personal emails of certain individuals but also the loss of up to $2 billion. The extent of the breach was twenty-four days and who knows the real extent of the damage with such an exposure. The worst can happen when terrorist attack the military website. This occurred in what was referred to as the Moonlight Maze. In this attack on the military systems, military maps, schematics, configuration of American troops from the pentagon, Department of Energy, various university, laboratory and NASA were targeted. This show the cyber terrorists have no limits at all and that they would attack any one or any institution without thinking of the consequences. This is because just like their counterparts who use bombs their target is mass casualty. In the light of the above events, major security measures should be taken to ensure the safety of America’s cyber space. Several responses should be taken and questions asked on how to achieve this enormous goal (Centre of Excellence Defense against Terrorism, 144). Steps such as setting up of emergency response systems in establishing of offsite backups, encouraging of techno- diversity and developing more useable security should be put in place (Reich & Geilbstein, 34). To sum up its clear that terrorists also evolve as technology evolves. They have migrated from the use of bombs, grenades and suicide bombers to looking for soft spots in America’s strengths to attack. So far, they have succeeded by attacking the economic powerhouse of the country’s economy and causing not just personal embarrassments but also destruction of corporate images. Fighting cyber terrorism is not a one country’s war but the global worlds. As much as every country will strive to protect its cyber space, joint effort and resources should be put in place to fight this 21st century menace. This is because today it will be America’s economy being destroyed and tomorrow it will be another country’s economy. This will consequently result into nations becoming poorer if nothing is done. Cyber terrorism is a real threat to the American people and economy as a whole because it not only instills fear to the citizens but also results in institutions and companies huge losses that may even lead to the companies shutting down. This kind of threat should be taken seriously to secure the people and the economy and above all to avoid another 9/11 in the cyber space that will result in a number of things. Firstly, the American economy may plunge into a financial crisis due to the huge losses incurred by the firms or institutions, which are the economic pillars of the country. The freedom of the American citizens of freely enjoying the benefits of technology being cut short due to fear of logging into the internet because their personal information may be stolen or worse used to intimidate them. Work Cited. Lech,Janczewski. Cyber warfare and Terrorism .Idea Group Inc.(IGI), 2007. Print. Council Of Europe. Cyber terrorism; the use of internet for terrorism purposes.Wiley Publishers.2007. Print. Reich, Pauline C., and Eduardo Gelbstein. Law, policy, and technology: cyber terrorism, information warfare, and Internet immobilization. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, 2012. Print. Bidgoli, Hossein.Handbook of Information Security, Information Warfare, Social and legal.Wiley publishers. 2006. Print. Balkhi, Seyd.25 biggest cyber-attacks in History.2015. Print. Center of Excellence defense Against Terrorism; Responses to Cyber Terrorism. IOS Press. Print. Read More