Forms of Cyber Terrorism

Forms of Cyber Terrorism

Social networking over the Internet has boomed in recent years because it allows networks of like-minded individuals to collaborate and connect, regardless of their respective geographies or physical location. Cyber terrorism as mentioned is a very serious issue and it covers vide range of attacks.

Some of the major tools of cyber crime may be- Botnets, Estonia, 2007, Malicious Code Hosted on Websites, Cyber Espionage etc.
It is pertinent to mark here that there are other forms which could be covered under the heading of Cyber Crime & simultaneously is also an important tools for terrorist activities. Here I’m going to discuss these criminal activities one by one:

Attacks via Internet:
Unauthorized access & Hacking:
one of the criminal activities is unauthorized access that would therefore mean any kind of access without the permission of either the rightful owner or the person in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network

Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction.

Trojan Attack:
Trojan is a program that acts like something useful but do the things that are quiet damping. The programs of this kind are called as Trojans.
Trojans come in two parts, a Client part and a Server part. When the victim (unknowingly) runs the server on its machine, the attacker will then use the Client to connect to the Server and start using the trojan.

Virus and Worm attack:
A program that has capability to infect other programs and make copies of itself and spread into other programs is called virus.
Programs that multiply like viruses but spread from computer to computer are called as worms.

E-mail related crimes:
1. Email spoofing:
Email spoofing refers to email that appears to have been originated from one source when it was actually sent from another source.

2. Email Spamming
Email "spamming" refers to sending email to thousands and thousands of users - similar to a chain letter.

Sending malicious codes through email
E-mails are used to send viruses, Trojans etc through emails as an attachment or by sending a link of website which on visiting downloads malicious code.

After investigation about different types of Cyber terrorism which may occur for anybody or organization I would like to mention some case studies to show this definitions and theories in real life.

As you know one of the most popular forms of Cyber terrorism is to threaten a large bank. The terrorists hack into the system and then leave an encrypted message for senior directors, which threaten the bank. What adds to the difficulty to catch the criminals is that the criminals may be in another country. A second difficulty is that most banks would rather pay the money than have the public know how vulnerable they are.

Here I show you some examples of cyber terrorism in its many forms:

Case 1:

Cyber-terrorists often commit acts of terrorism simply for personal gain. Such a group, known as the Chaos Computer Club, was discovered in 1997. They had created an Active X Control for the Internet that can trick the Quicken accounting program into removing money from a user's bank account. This could easily be used to steal money from users all over the world that have the Quicken software installed on their computer. This type of file is only one of thousands of types of viruses that can do everything from simply annoy users, to disable large networks, which can have disastrous, even life and death, results.

This Active X program can be sent via e-mail to victim. As i mentioned above this can be classified under e-mail Crimes which may happen to any organization. So the employees of organization or even any client should be aware of receiving undesirable e-mails. In case of receiving e-mail form unknown sender. Below I’ll mentioned some solutions in order to avoid from being violated.

Case 2:

Terrorism can also come in the form of disinformation. Terrorists can many times say what they please without fear of reprisal from authorities or of accountability for what they say. In a recent incident, the rumor that a group of people were stealing people's kidneys for sale was spread via the Internet. The rumor panicked thousands of people. This is an ethical issue similar to screaming 'Fire' in a crowded theater. In case like this, the number of people affected is unlimited. Thousands of people were scared by this and could have suffered emotionally.

As you can see the ethical and behavioural issues may act as Cyber terrorism like the rumor which happened in the second case.

How to prepare ourselves to prevent form Cyber Terrorism?

Here I mention two ways of prevention from cyber terrorism attacks:

1. Beware of Mail Attachments

This is one of the most common methods of causing damage. Many email applications today allow for the execution of code in email attachments. Many 'worms' have been released in this manner over the past few years, with effects ranging from relatively harmless propagation of the worm to massive file damage. Users should disable features of their mail application that allow for indiscriminate execution of active code attachments and use a reliable virus scanner that understands email attachments.

2. Engage Anti-Virus Software

This software has the ability to scan files on a local computer and, in some cases, to monitor inbound and outbound traffic from applications such as email attachments. This software requires constant updating in order to be effective, and the best applications will automatically download updated virus definition files at predetermined intervals.