INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TERRORISM
 |
| Outdoor MAARS 350 |
Our societies have become totally dependent on information technology. As a consequence, attacks upon computer systems, both public and private, have become the norm: cyber criminals conduct fraudulent transactions and steal personal data and trade secrets; crackers (criminal hackers) break into computer systems, disrupt service, sabotage data, launch viruses and worms, and harass individuals and companies. Many of these attacks are serious and produce severe economic loss and damage. They are facilitated by increasingly powerful and user-friendly software tools, mostly available for free from thousands of websites on the Internet.
1.TERRORISTS USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Terrorist groups currently use computer technology to facilitate traditional forms of subversive activity. Quite simply, they are exploiting modern tools to perform common terrorist actions such as internal communication and co-ordination, propaganda and misinformation, recruitment and financing, information and intelligence gathering. The use of the Internet for propaganda purposes is particularly popular. Radical opposition groups such as Hezbollah and Zapatistas use it regularly to communicate their revolutionary programmes. Various neo-nazi and white supremacist groups in the United States also use the World Wide Web to recruit supporters and collect finance.
2.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS A WEAPONS OR TARGET
Terrorist groups have used computer technology to threaten or attack national infrastructures, including national security infrastructures, and commercial firms. These attacks have reportedly generated actual damage only in the form of temporary disruption of services, public inconveniences, or financial loss. So far, no attack has led to violence, either physical or psychological, against civilians, or to major disruption. Probably the first politically motivated cyberattack was conducted by ethnic Tamil guerrillas, who in 1998 swamped Sri Lankan embassies with hundreds of e-mails over a two-week time. The attacks upon NATO computer systems during the Kosovo campaign in 1999 (see Ehlers’ report) could also be defined as cyberterrorism, although they were presumably conducted not by terrorists but by individual hackers protesting against the Alliance’s bombings.
3.COUNTERING CYBERTERRORISM
The threat posed by cyberattacks has been generally recognised by governments and international organisations. Several NATO nations have adopted protective measures for their critical infrastructures relying on information technology and specific laws of varying effectiveness dealing with computer-related crimes and cyberattacks.
The Clinton Administration has also proposed several initiatives, not all implemented because of financing problems or opposition in Congress, to defend the nation’s computer systems, such as:
· increasing federal R&D investments in computer security;
· designing a Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNET) to protect vital systems in federal civilian agencies;
· establishing an Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection that will combine federal and private efforts to fill the gaps in critical research;
· establishing a Federal Cyber Service Training and Education initiative, which will fund scholarships to students who develop new programmes in computer security and agree to work in this field for the government for at least two years.
1.TERRORISTS USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Terrorist groups currently use computer technology to facilitate traditional forms of subversive activity. Quite simply, they are exploiting modern tools to perform common terrorist actions such as internal communication and co-ordination, propaganda and misinformation, recruitment and financing, information and intelligence gathering. The use of the Internet for propaganda purposes is particularly popular. Radical opposition groups such as Hezbollah and Zapatistas use it regularly to communicate their revolutionary programmes. Various neo-nazi and white supremacist groups in the United States also use the World Wide Web to recruit supporters and collect finance.
2.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS A WEAPONS OR TARGET
Terrorist groups have used computer technology to threaten or attack national infrastructures, including national security infrastructures, and commercial firms. These attacks have reportedly generated actual damage only in the form of temporary disruption of services, public inconveniences, or financial loss. So far, no attack has led to violence, either physical or psychological, against civilians, or to major disruption. Probably the first politically motivated cyberattack was conducted by ethnic Tamil guerrillas, who in 1998 swamped Sri Lankan embassies with hundreds of e-mails over a two-week time. The attacks upon NATO computer systems during the Kosovo campaign in 1999 (see Ehlers’ report) could also be defined as cyberterrorism, although they were presumably conducted not by terrorists but by individual hackers protesting against the Alliance’s bombings.
3.COUNTERING CYBERTERRORISM
The threat posed by cyberattacks has been generally recognised by governments and international organisations. Several NATO nations have adopted protective measures for their critical infrastructures relying on information technology and specific laws of varying effectiveness dealing with computer-related crimes and cyberattacks.
The Clinton Administration has also proposed several initiatives, not all implemented because of financing problems or opposition in Congress, to defend the nation’s computer systems, such as:
· increasing federal R&D investments in computer security;
· designing a Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNET) to protect vital systems in federal civilian agencies;
· establishing an Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection that will combine federal and private efforts to fill the gaps in critical research;
· establishing a Federal Cyber Service Training and Education initiative, which will fund scholarships to students who develop new programmes in computer security and agree to work in this field for the government for at least two years.
No comments:
Post a Comment