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English IV
5 February 2013
Cyberterrorism: Digital Warfare According to a study by Maya Shwayder, a journalist for the International Business Times, in 2006, more than ten years after its introduction to the public, the World Wide Web was being used by 18% of the Earth’s population. Today, that number has risen to 35%, almost twice what it was seven years ago (Shwayder, par. 1). This number continues to rise as developing country’s begin to provide Internet access to more and more people. For the United States, the United Kingdom, and other highly-developed countries, the Internet is an extremely important part of everyday life. It is used for entertainment, communication, even commerce. Unfortunately , the Internet is a two-edged sword and also can be used to cause great despair and destruction, such as when it is used to steal personal information. There are people who seek to use the Internet in this way. These people have been termed “cyberterrorists,” who commit acts of “cyberterrorism,” which involves attacking and/or stealing from information systems. Today, these attacks are commonly aimed at smaller Web sites or sites that are based in foreign countries. However, attacks are becoming more frequent and are targeting larger Web sites. As stated by Kenneth Himma, an Internet Security specialist, “popular sites [such as Facebook and Google] likely will be victims of these terrorists, unless something is done to combat the issue (Himma 74).”
In the past decade, terrorists and terrorist organizations have added the Internet to their arsenal of terrorist methods. This has led to a new class of threat, which has been termed “cyber terrorism.” This can be seen as different from “traditional” terrorism since physical terror does not occur and efforts are instead focused upon attacking information systems and resources. When viewed from the perspective of skills and techniques, there is little to distinguish cyber terrorists from the general classification of hackers. Both groups require and use an arsenal of techniques in order to breach the security of target systems. From a motivational perspective, however, cyber terrorists are clearly different, operating with a specific political or ideological agenda to support their actions. This in turn may result in more focused and determined efforts to achieve their objectives and more considered selection of suitable targets for attack. However, the difference does not necessarily end there, and other factors should be considered. Firstly, the fact that cyber terrorists are part of an organized group could mean that they have funding available to support their activities. This in turn would mean that individual hackers could be hired to carry out attacks on behalf of a terrorist organization. In this situation, the hackers may not believe in the terrorist’s “cause,” but will undertake the work for payment.
As of today, there has not been any serious acts of cyber terrorism in the world, but computer networks have been attacked in recent conflicts in Middle East. As terrorists usually have a limited amount of funds, cyber attacks are more tempting since only one person is needed and it is not costly. Another advantage of cyber attacks is that it allows the terrorist to remain unknown, since they could be far away from the actual place where the terrorism is being carried out. As terrorists normally set up camp in a country with a weak government, the cyber terrorist could set up anywhere and remain anonymous. A combination of both physical terrorism and cyber terrorism is the most effective use of cyber terrorism. For example, disrupting emergency services in which the emergency was created by physical terrorism would be a very effective way to combine both. There are a lot of possibilities created for cyber terrorists because of the Internet. Government computer networks, financial networks, power plants, and so forth, are all possible targets as terrorists may see these as the best to corrupt or disarm in order to cause the most chaos. Controlling systems with software using secret “back doors,” theft of classified files, erasing data, rewriting Web pages, introducing viruses, and so on, are just a few examples of how terrorism can penetrate secure systems. Terrorist attacks made possible by the use of computer technology could also be plane control hijacking systems, or corrupting power grids from a remote destination. Terrorist groups often use new information technology and the Internet to formulate plans, raise money, spread propaganda, and communicate securely. For example, Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist who planned the September 11 attacks, stored detailed plans to destroy United States’ planes on encrypted files on his laptop computer. Terrorist organizations also use the Internet to target their audiences without using media such as radio, television, or the press. Web sites are presented as a way of highlighting “injustices” and seeking support for political prisoners who are oppresed or in jail. Normally, a Web site will not reveal any information about violent activities and will usually claim that they have been left with no choice but to turn to violence. They claim they are persecuted, their leader’s subject to assassination attempts and their supporters massacred. They use this tactic to give the impression that they are weak, and they portray themselves as the underdog. This is a very easy way of recruiting new supporters and members. Terrorists also often have information on how to build chemical and explosive weapons on their Web sites. This allows them to identify users who may be sympathetic to their cause, so it is a cost effective recruitment method. It also enables individuals who are acting on their own to engage in terrorist activity without actually being in the action.
Terrorists use cyber space to cause disruption. Terrorists fight against governments for their cause, and they use every means possible to get what they want. Cyber attacks come in two forms; one against data and one against control systems. Theft and corruption of data leads to services being sabotaged and this is the most common form of Internet and computer attack. Attacks which focus on control systems are used to disable or manipulate physical infrastructure. For example, electrical networks, railroads, or water supplies could be infiltrated to have wide negative impacts on nearby geographical areas. This is done by using the Internet to send data or by penetrating security systems. These weak spots in the system were highlighted by an incident in Australia in March 2000 where a disgruntled employee (who failed to secure full-time employment) used the Internet to release 1 million liters of raw sewage into the river and coastal waters in Queensland. Actually, it took him a total of 44 failed attempts to breach the system and his 45th attempt was successful. The first 44 were not detected (Himma 82). In 1998, a terrorist guerrilla organization flooded Sri Lankan embassies with 800 e-mails a day for a two-week period. The messages simply read “We are the Internet Black Tigers and we’re doing this to interrupt your communications.” Intelligence departments characterized it as the first known attack by terrorists against a country’s computer systems. Internet saboteurs defaced the Home Page of, and stole e-mail from, India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center in the summer of 1998. The three anonymous saboteurs claimed in an Internet interview to have been protesting recent Indian nuclear blasts (Briere, 64). In July 1997, the leader of a Chinese hacker group claimed to have temporarily disabled a Chinese satellite and announced he was forming a new global hacker organization to protest and disrupt Western investment in China. In September 1998, on the evening before Sweden’s general election, saboteurs defaced the Web site of Sweden’s right-wing moderates political party and created links to the home pages of the left-wing party and a pornography site. That same month, other saboteurs rewrote the home page of a Mexican government Internet site to protest what they said were instances of government corruption and censorship. These examples of cyber crime are called low-level information warfare. Some countries such as the U.S. and Australia have recommended setting up a cyber space network operations center which will include Internet service providers and computer hardware and software developers. Their task is to develop secure technology, such as intelligence analysis software, which will be capable of sifting through and analyzing existing data, both public and private, in order to uncover suspicious activity.