Background and Context: Exploring the Progression of Cyber Terrorism

Source: American Security Project

Understandably, cyber terrorism does not obtain a vast history as the main threat involved has only really accelerated within the last decade. After the attacks on September 11 in 2001, the threat and fear of physical terrorism became dominant in society, politics and the media. Although, a year prior to that, in February 2000 a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was carried out on a range of successful internet sites (e.g. Amazon, Yahoo, CNN). The attack generated issues for millions of users who were unable to access these services, creating further problems for the companies’ sense of security they offered (Biegel, 2003). While this was not the first cyber-attack, it did prove that the issue needed to be addressed and there were potential threats to security. An operation can be implemented from anywhere in the world, which makes the act of cyber-attacks all that harder to discover and stop before disrupting society or causing physical damage. Past examples date back to 1996 that were conducted out of political and social objectives; this became the first documented case of cyber terrorist attacks. A computer attacker in 1996, allegedly associated with the White Supremacist movement had disabled a Massachusetts ISP and damaged part of the ISP’s record keeping system in order to send out worldwide racist messages under the ISP’s name. The hackers signed off with the threat, "you have yet to see true electronic terrorism. This is a promise", not surprisingly attacks have only increased since (Daily News, 2009).

Source: EFF

More recently, the media have addressed potential threats that we may or may not be faced with by cyber terrorists. There is relevance today due to increasing fears of terrorist attacks (mainly physical) and with technology only increasing in capability, both government hacking and cyber terrorism seems inevitable to continue. There is evidence of progression of cyber terrorism throughout the past few decades, particularly with its definition. As previously stated, Collins (1980) introduced it as the connection between cyberspace and terrorism. However, that has since shifted and expanded to include a lot of other cyber crimes, which defined in the same manner (Colarik, 2006). The phrase has become very subjective in its use, Colarik states in his book 'Cyber Terrorism' that the new definitions have lost their connection to terrorism. Further arguing that the term 'terrorism' has even shifted in meaning as well, stating that it has been turned into a form of 'fearism' (2006: 14). Understanding cyber terrorism is very context specific and over the last few years, government agencies' perceptive on this subject has opened it up. For example, the FBI now have three categorisations in which someone can be labelled a 'cyber terrorist' (Baranetsky, 2009):

1. "Terrorism that initiates attacks on information" (1999). 
2. "The use of Cyber tools" (2000).
3. "A criminal act perpetrated by the use of computers" (2004).

The issue presents a risk to national security due to the hidden capabilities of its attacks. Examples of physical acts of terrorism have been present in recent years, attracting vast amounts of attention. Whereas cyber terrorism has the advantages of remaining secretive for a longer period of time, groups or individuals are able to use it to further their goals through the inaccessible location they are operating from and therefore less identifiable (Milone, 2002: 384). Moreover, since the attacks on September 11, over a decade ago, technology dependency has only increased and the advancements are vast. Thus the disruption cyber terrorists can cause to government and national security are larger than ever before, computers lie at the centre of our country and are vital to communication, controlling power, financial services, and personal security (Lichtenbaum, 2002).

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References:

Baranetsky, V. (2009). What is cyberterrorism? Even experts can’t agree. Harvard Law Record. Available: http://www.hlrecord.org/news/what-is-cyberterrorism-even-experts-can-t-agree-1.861186

Biegel, Stuart. Beyond Our Control? Controlling the Limits of Our Legal System inthe Age of Cyberspace. New York: The MIT Press, 2003.

Colarik, A (2006). Cyber Terrorism: Political and Economic Implications. London: Idea Group Publishing. 14-17.

Daily News. (2009). Countering cyber-terrorism. Available: http://archives.dailynews.lk/2009/07/28/fea03.asp. Last accessed 27 September 2015.

Lichtenbaum, P. (2002). The Response to Cyberattacks: Balancing Security and Cost. Journal of International Law. 36 (39).

Milone, M. (2002). Hacktivism: Securing the National Infrastructure. Business Law. 58. 383.