Cyber Espionage And Cyber Terrorism

Every time we connect to the Internet at home, at school, at work, or on our mobile devices we make decisions that affect not only ourselves, but our neighbors, or colleagues, and our nation. Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and each of us has a role to play (Homeland Security 2015). The intended audiences that are most interested, receptive and motivated, in reading this research paper: business owners, teenagers, college students, military, people in IT, computer science, employees and government. Cyber space has become a critical area of national security with the ever increasing amount of information transferred through and contained within digital environments. Attacks over the last couple of years reveal the severity of the threat regarding both the target and the number of the attacks (Braman, Susmann & Vaseashta 2014). If your business is like most in America, Internet is an indispensable modern tool for daily transactions. Online browsing allows connectivity to new customers and business growth. If you do not have a Web site, Instagram, Facebook page or Twitter account, you probably rely on Internet to perform your day-to-day business, as banking, payroll or orders for supplies. Using the internet should be safe. Small businesses may think they are not targeted; but cybercriminals are

Cyberterrorism is a critical threat and is the most definitive characteristic of the U.S. contemporary security environment. For years, the American people have been victimized by cyber-attacks by having their personal information, emails, credit card, and banking information stolen by an invisible enemy named cyberterrorism. These types of attacks seem insignificant however; they are small examples of the vulnerabilities that our cyber world is experiencing. Our vulnerabilities are leaving our public officials in significant danger from cyber-attacks, as they are vulnerable to such things as the release of personal information and home addresses.

Tomorrow’s terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb (National Research Council1). The United States Department of States defined terrorism as: “…premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.” Terrorism not only occurs on the real life today but also on the internet. As the technology rapidly developed, there is an increase in the usage of internet, the threat comes along the way. Due to the occurrence of internet terrorism-generating fears to the public, the term “Cyberterrorism” was coined by Barry Collin in the 1980’s (Cyberterrorism Defined). The definition of cyberterrorism differs from various legal systems and government

Moreover, many organizations within the public and private sector heavily relies on technology to carry out their day to day operations. Those cyber technologies help make many difficult or tedious tasks easier to do and technology can also carry out many of those tasks more effectively and efficiently than humans can. However, cyber technologies are at risk of espionage, cyber attacks, or other crimes such as theft and fraud (Ammori & Poellet, 2010).

In order to properly answer the question posed we must first define what cyber-war and cyber-terrorism are. The Oxford Dictionaries defines cyber-war as “The use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of communication systems by another state or organization:” Although there is no dictionary definition of cyber-terrorism, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has defined it as “the use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (e.g., energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population.” The author defines cyber terror as “the intimidation of civilian enterprise through the use of high technology to bring about political, religious, or ideological aims, actions that result in disabling or deleting critical infrastructure data or information.”

Cyberterrorist attacks can be threats, intimidation or even a violent act for personal gain, whereas a hacktivist will use less threatening approaches like a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack to take down a service in an attempt to promote social change.

Cyberterrorism is the utilization of PC system instruments to hurt or close down basic national bases, e.g. transportation and government operations. The reason of cyberterrorism is that as countries and basic base turned out to be more subject to PC systems for their operation, new vulnerabilities are made. Cyberterrorism is an alluring alternative for cutting edge terrorists, who esteem its secrecy, its capability to exact gigantic harm, its mental effect, and its media offer. The risk postured by cyberterrorism has gotten the consideration of the broad communications, the security group, and the data innovation (IT) industry. Columnists, lawmakers, and specialists in an assortment of fields have promoted a situation in which complex digital terrorists electronically break into PCs that control dams or aviation authority frameworks, wreaking devastation and jeopardizing a large number of lives as well as national security itself. But, in spite of all the bleak forecasts of a digital produced doomsday, no single occurrence of genuine cyberterrorism has been recorded (Verton 129).

The availability of cheap cyber weapons has made cyber-terrorism a growing threat to the stability of America's critical infrastructures and society in general. Needless to say that cyber terrorism is a major issue for American policymakers and IT professionals. The growing threat to commercial and government entities has prompted organizations to develop effective strategies and methods to protect their resources and assets from the threat of attackers. Such strategies and methods include but are not limited to continual risk and vulnerability assessment, upgrade of software and use of tools such as encryption, firewalls and intrusion detection systems and the implementation of disaster recovery and business continuity plans in the case of a cyber incident. The following paper will offer a few basic definitions to illustrate the concept of cyber terrorism, discuss the physical and human aspects of cyber terrorism, offer assessment of the most pressing threats and the most vulnerable targets, recommend methods to combat national and international cyber terrorism. Finally, several preventative actions will be recommended for implementation. Finally, a basic checklist/template is also provided in order to better illustrate and summarize recommendations and suggestions.

Cyberterrorism is also clearly an emerging threat. Terrorist groups are increasingly computer savvy, and some probably are acquiring the ability to use cyber attacks to inflict isolated and brief disruptions of US infrastructure. Due to the prevalence of publicly available hacker tools, many of these groups probably already have the capability to launch denial-of-service and other nuisance attacks against Internet-connected systems. As terrorists become more computer savvy, their attack options will only increase.” (War on Terrorism, 2003)

According to the director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “The cyber warfare threat facing the United States is increasing in scope and scale and its impact is difficult to overstate” (Jason and Steve 6). Now the United State of America is also under the threat of Cyberwarfare; people must get known about their rights and ways to protect them self, also the big origination holding the public records should be alerted and the precaution should must taken right away for the safe side. Looking towards the issues of cyberwarfare in United States of America, four aspects should be taken in consideration that is what is cyberwarfare, how it works, offensive of it and defensive of it.

“110 million Americans saw their identities compromised in 2014” Gault argues, adding that 110 million is one in every two Americans (2). With new technological inventions, such as the cloud, which allows remote access to stored information, there are “too many vulnerabilities hackers can exploit” (Gault 7). Cybersecurity has been breached due to the lack of integrity in the system. There is an acute focus on encryption in the industry with the belief that it is the key in ensuring confidentiality and ultimately, cybersecurity. Meanwhile, the industry “rarely” addresses integrity (Gault 17). Gault firmly argues that “the system is broken” because of the lack of integrity in the system. Confidentiality, while important, is not integral in preventing and providing solutions for data breach and theft. The current system solution for cybersecurity threat is dominated by a “lock-and-key system”; preventative, but once access is achieved, accessibility becomes much more effortless for others (Gault 21). Gault suggests an integrity solution that acts more “like an alarm”, a method focused on monitoring suspicious activity on online databases and platforms that then sends an alert when suspicious activity is detected. (22). Gault argues the loss of integrity is apparent in the cybersecurity industry because of the method in which prevents unauthorized access and thievery does not include elements of integrity. The

We are essentially exposing ourselves and, more importantly, personally identifiable information to a number of cyber threats every time we worked on our laptop. Hackers, often with the help of malicious software, do their best to steal information from personal devices for the benefit of themselves or a third party. EBay, for example, revealed that hackers had managed to steal personal records of 233 million users’ personal information, including usernames, passwords, phone numbers and physical addresses between February and March in 2014. Moreover, damage that derived from cyber-attack also have an impact on national economy, which increase a further risk of living hood of the public. According to the AP, U.S. intelligence officials have said that cyber-crime currently trumps terrorism is the biggest threat to the country’s security. According to research from Arbor Networks, the number of DDoS events, Distributed Denial of Service attack, topping 20GDPs in the first half of 2014, are double that of 2013. With more than 100 attacks at over 100GDPs or higher recorded in the first half of the year in US. Posed by cyber-attack, the devastating impact on individual and the nation has begun to attract attention of the public. Given by IT governance nonprofit ISACA, it was said that 92 percent of respondents felt that advanced persistent

Former counsel to the National Security Agency, Joel Brenner, said, “The Internet was not built for security, yet we have made it the backbone of virtually all private sector and government operations, as well as communications” (Lee, Anderson, & Connolly, 2014, p. 9). He continued and said it has brought with it dramatic gains, but it has created excessive vulnerabilities (p. 9). It is the feeling across the world that people’s identities and business will constantly be under attack. The evidence of the Stuxnet worm is an indicator that there are attacks occurring at the nation-state level, and it is increasing in disruption and destruction. It is anticipated that a major cyber attack will cause widespread harm to security at the national level, and will cause risks in people’s ability to defend themselves. By 2025, people anticipate there will be widespread use of cyber terrorism and threats (p. 9).

The drawback of Estonia's information technology framework was that its defensive protocol was not much secure and could be easily hacked. Moreover, the country was much depended on internet.

Cybercrime has become a fast growing concern for the 21st century as businesses, institutions and individuals grow into an interconnected web of computer networks. Online business transactions, along with the sharing of personal information, are vulnerable to a host of disasters that can reap economic and social havoc. Some sources say that today, cybercrime costs more than $1.0 trillion to society--Global Industry Analysts, Inc. forecasted the world cyber security market to reach $80 billion by 2017 (Gale, 2011).