Cyber Terrorism

Rob Felsburg
 Class Participation

What do you think cyber terrorism is?

 Cyber Terrorism
• Cyber terrorism is generally understood as the crossing
over of terrorism and cyberspace. This leads to unlawful
attacks and threats of attacks against computer,
networks and the info stored therein.

• In order to qualify as cyber terrorism an attack results in

violence against person or property, or at least causes
enough harm to generate fear.

• Many of these attacks are done using powerful software

applications made readily available across the world
wide web.
 Cyber Terrorism
Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not

• Cyberspace is constantly under attack, be it from spies,

thieves, saboteurs or thrill seeking 11 year olds. DOS
attacks are launched, data is sabotaged, inbox’s are
flamed. Not to mention the countless virus’s that are
released, many make use of fraudulent transactions and
harass workers, companies, and home users.

• These attacks are serious, and costly.

 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• 1996, a computer hacker allegedly associated with a

white supremacist group, temporarily disabled an ISP
and damaged part of their record keeping system. This
was due to them trying to deny him service because he
was sending out worldwide racist messages under their
name.
 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• In 98’, Spanish protestors swamped the Institute for

Global Communications (ICG), with bogus e-mails, tying
up users accounts due to mail box quotas, and phone
lines due to user complaints. All of this was due to ICG
hosting Euskal Herria Journal, a New York based
publication for Basque independence. It was claimed that
this journal was supporting Terrorism because a section
of the page talked about a group, ETA, which claimed
responsibility for assassinating Spanish political figures.
Under threat of similar tactics being employed on other
ICG companies, the page was removed.
 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• The first known attack against a coutry’s computer

system was employed against a Sri Lanken Embassy, in
which Tamil guerrillas swamped the inboxes with over
800 mail messages a day over two weeks. The message
written was simple:

We are the Internet Black Tigers and we’re doing this to

disrupt your communications.
 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• Web defacement is also very common, when the

Chinese embassy was accidently bombed in Belgrade,
Chinese hactivist posted messages acros US
government web sites saying “We won’t stop until the
war stops”
 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• During the war in Kosovo in 99’ NATO computers were

spammed with e-mail bombs and DOS attacks by
hacktivist protesting the bombings.
 Cyber Terrorism
Examples -

• Since 97’ THE Electronic disturbance Theatre, EDT, has

been conducting web sit-ins, in which thousands of
protestors against various sites in support of Mexican
Zapatistas using software designed to flood a website
with rapid request for downloads. This is more commonly
used by Electro hippies and hacktivists than hackers
since it is dependent on mass support.
 Cyber Terrorism
• In order for Cyber Terrorism to work two things must
happen, there must be targets that are vulnerable to
attack which could lead to violence and harming
someone; and also somebody to carry out these threats.

• In a study by NSA red groups, it was found that 911

systems and power grids, could be hacked by publicly
available tools.

• It is impossible to correct all of the weaknesse’s since

many are dependent on suer configurations, and are
always at the scrutiny of peopole using them which leads
to someone helping a hacker who has access to the
system to begin with
 Cyber Terrorism
• This is especially true about consultants and contractors
who often have root or super user access.

• This past March, Japan’s Police reported that a software

system had been bought to track 150 police vehicles
including unmarked cars. This software had been sub-
contracted out to Aum Shinryko cult, the groups had
already received classified information on about 115
vehicles. It was then discovered that this cult had
employed this tactic to develop software four over 80
Japanese firms, and 10 government agencies.
 Cyber Terrorism
• We can clearly see that the infrastructure is weak and
can be manipulated by various mean…but what of the
people who have the ability to do this…is there motive.
This is why Cyber Terrorism is so dangerous, most
hackers do posses the knowledge, but lack the
motivation to create such violence and severe disruption.
However many terrorist pride themselves on his ability.

• Despite the many actions of the few, there are few

indications that this is going to become a widespread
tactic of terrorists.
 Cyber Terrorism
• In 1999, the center for the Studyt of Terrorism and
Irregular Warfar at the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey California issued a report titled “Cyberterror:
Prospects and Implications.” It was concluded that the
barrier for entry for anything beyond annoying hacks is
quite high, and that terrorists generally lack the
wherewithal and human capital needed to mount a
meaningful operation. Cybertterorism it has been
concluded is a thing of the future.
 Cyber Terrorism
• We can clearly see that the infrastructure is weak and
can be manipulated by various mean…but what of the
people who have the ability to do this…is there motive.
This is why Cyber Terrorism is so dangerous, most
hackers do posses the knowledge, but lack the
motivation to create such violence and severe disruption.
However many terrorist pride themselves on his ability.

• Despite the many actions of the few, there are few

indications that this is going to become a widespread
tactic of terrorists.
 Cyber Terrorism
• Three groups have been defined:

• Simple unstructured: Conduct basic hacks against

individuals using tools created by someone else. Little
command and control.
• Advanced structured (2-4): Conduct more sophisticated
attacks against multiple systems or networks and
possibly the ability to create or modify tools. Elementary
command and control.
• Complex coordinated(6-10): Capability for coordinated
attacks causing mass disruption, integrated defenses
including cryptography, Ability to create sophisticated
hacking tools. Highly capable command and control.
 Cyber Terrorism
• 5 Terrorists group types:

New Age
Religious
Ethno-nationalists-separatists
Revolutionary
Far right extremists

Only religious likely to seek Complex coordinated

New age or single issue pose immediate threat
 Cyber Terrorism
Drawbacks -
• Systems are complex, and thus harder to control an
attack.
• Unless people are injured there is less drama and
emotional appeal
• Terrorist close minded, and less likely to switch from old
means of attack unless inadeuqate
 Cyber Terrorism
• In conclusion at the present cyber terrorism to the
extreme is not as much of a burden, however general
cyber crime is very much a part of today’s cyberspace;
and cyber terrorism is very likely to be a few years in the
future but nevertheless coming.