Network Security And Terrorism


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Network Security And Terrorism

Network Security And Terrorism

Cyber-attacks can result in eco-financial risks at a cost much higher than the cost of the attack. The potential consequences of system network compromise include monetary losses, identity theft, privacy breaches, critical infrastructure failure, loss of corporate competitiveness, and damage to national security. New paradigms of security awareness, assessment, and integration are required to combat this rapidly escalating threat.

The Impact of Cyber Attacks and Cyber Terrorism

Users and administrators need to be cognizant of how enemies, both internal and external, can exploit gaps in security protocols in order to obtain intelligence to be used against military forces engaged in combat operations in theaters across the globe or to cause severe damage to those systems used to support military operations.

The general fear among US leaders is that cyber terrorism can be used as "leveler" on the modern battlefield allowing less well armed nations or organizations to utilize such attacks as a strategic weapon much in the same manner as a nuclear weapon would be used to destroy or disrupt a nation's infrastructure. In addition to the obvious military concerns, enemies and criminals can penetrate and undermine or damage the control systems that provide the country with water, food, and electricity.

Crackers, an abbreviation of criminal hackers, or black hats as they are known within the network security industry, are one form of cybercriminal that experts fight to deter. Cyber spies and saboteurs are another threat that draws the focus of government network security specialists. Mike Theis, former chief of cyber counterintelligence at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is quoted as saying "…organized criminal activity provides a more pervasive and damaging threat than organized terrorists" (Tennant, 2009).

What is more worrisome is that such attacks cause far more in sustained damage and loss of productivity compared to the actual cost incurred by the hacker to launch the attack. A 2002 Center for Strategic and International Studies report by James Lewis estimate that the Love Bug virus cost users around the world between $3B-$15B (Lewis, 2002). In October 2002, an anonymous party executed an hour-long Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack, targeting 13 root servers of a main Internet hub and forcing eight of the thirteen servers offline.

Cyber Attacks and National Security Concerns

Cyber spies and cyber saboteurs are the product of hostile foreign governments and terrorist organizations whose sole purpose is to breach US government information systems in order to obtain intelligence information to be used against US interests or to cause damage to the information systems themselves in order to cripple or destroy both civilian and military command and control and infrastructure systems.

In a 2009 article in Computerworld, Don Tennant quotes Steven Chabinksy, senior cyber advisor to the director of national intelligence, as saying the US has “… identified a number of sophisticated nation-state actors who we believe have the capability to bring down portions of our critical infrastructure”(Tennant, 2009). There is evidence to suggest that the People’s Republic of China, Iran, and Russia have highly developed cyber and information warfare capabilities.