Cyber Terrorisme

Introduction

Cyber terrorism can be defined as “ the use of computers as weapons, or as targets, by politically motivated international, or sub-national groups, or clandestine agents who threaten or cause violence and fear in order to influence an audience, or cause a government to change its policies" (Wilson, n.d.). There are a lots of cyber terrorism types that are attacking users and governments today such as hacking, Trojan attacks, virus and worm attacks,  email spoofing, malicious codes in emails and denial of service (DOS) attack (Heidari, 2010).

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Why Cyber Terrorism increased?

But why the numbers of cyber terrorism are increasing everyday? The main reason why cyber terrorism is gaining popularity is because the terrorist doesn't need any explosive or even high tech machine to attack the victim. They just need to deliver viruses using current technology such as telephone, cable or wireless network. This will definitely help them to become more anonymous and less the risk of getting caught by the authorities.When they have the ability to become 'invisible' from the authorities, numbers of attackers on certain target will increased. Critical infrastructures such as banks, hospitals and government portals are usually the main targets (massivedynamics, 2010).


Example of Cases

In March 1997, a teenage hacker had attacked a telephone company computer that providing service to the Worcester Airport in Massachusetts. The attacker causing a lot of damage to the Worcester Airport by cutting off the service to the airport control tower, fire department, security, and weather service for six hours (massivedynamics, 2010).


51 gov.my websites or governments portals had been attack by of a foreign-based hacker group, Anonymous on June 16,2011. Although prevention actions were claimed to have been taken by the Malaysian government, this has exposed Malaysia’s inability to fight cyber attacks (Goan, 2011).

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Effects of Terrorism

We can see that cyber terrorism can weaken the country economy. If the country are known for vulnerability of cyber attacks, investors will be reluctant to invest in that particular country. This is because it can effect their business. Automatically, the country economy also will be effected (massivedynamics, 2010).

Telecommunication system is very important and crucial in our life today. As shown in Cases Example on Worcester Airport, hacking a telecommunication system could leads to death. For example, if the Control Tower cannot communicate with planes, it could make the planes collide with each other. This shows how cyber terrorism could impact our daily life (massivedynamics, 2010).




Prevention

As a user of information technology, public can avoid or prevent cyber terrorism by beware of mail attachments. Most cases of cyber attacks on users started from email. Normally, attackers will use email as a method to send virus and worms. Use virus scanners or delete any emails form unknown sender. Using an anti virus software also will help users for being attack. This is because it will scan files in the computer and monitor irregular activities so users will have less chance of being attacked (Heidari, 2010).

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In order to fight cyber terrorism, Malaysian government have created an entity which is  CyberSecurity Malaysia. It is the national cyber security specialist agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). ICT security and threats monitoring to the national security will be done by CyberSecurity Malaysia (CyberSecurity Malaysia, 2013).

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References

CyberSecurity Malaysia, 2013. Corporate Information. [Online]
Available at: http://www.cybersecurity.my/en/about_us/brief_detail/main/detail/729/index.html
[Accessed 2013].

Goan, L. S., 2011. The Malaysian Insider. [Online]
Available at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/cyber-terrorism-lim-sue-goan
[Accessed 17 June 2011].

Heidari, M., 2010. Forms of Cyber Terrorism. [Online]
Available at: http://maryamheidari.blogspot.com/2010/04/forms-of-cyber-terrorism.html
[Accessed 24 April 2010].

massivedynamic, 2010. What Is Cyber Terrorism?. [Online]
Available at: http://massivedynamic.hubpages.com/hub/What-Is-Cyber-Terrorism
[Accessed 13 September 2010].

Wilson, C., n.d. Computer Attack and Cyberterrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues for Congress. [Online]
Available at: http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/computerattack.htm
[Accessed 1 April 2005].