Essay About Cyber Attacks And Computer Systems

Cyberterrorism
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CYBER ATTACKS AND EFFECTS
INDIVIDUAL PROTECTION
PAST INCIDENTS
ETHICS
EVALUATION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Introduction
Cyberterrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally
understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers,
networks, and the information stored therein. Possibly to intimidate, influence a
government or its people to further political or social gain. To qualify as
cyberterrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or
generate fear. Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, plane
crashes, water contamination, or severe economic loss would be examples, serious
attacks against important infrastructures could be acts of cyberterrorism,
depending on their impact. This report will illustrate and analyse the main issues
and ideas behind cyberterrorism. This will include information that has led to the
internet being used in a mailicous way, ethical issues, paradigms that
cyberterrorism follows, motivations and incidents that have occurred in the past.
One FBI spokespersons definition is-
Cyber terrorism means intentional use or threat of use, without legally
recognized authority, of violence, disruption, or interference against cyber
systems, when it is likely that such use would result in death or injury of a
person or persons, substantial damage to physical property, civil disorder, or
significant economic harm.
Cyber attacks and effects
Cyberspace is constantly under assault. Cyber spies, thieves, saboteurs, and thrill
seekers break into computer systems, steal personal data and trade secrets,
vandalize Web sites, disrupt service, sabotage data and systems, launch computer
viruses and worms, conduct fraudulent transactions, and harass individuals and
companies. These attacks are facilitated with increasingly powerful and easy-to-use
software tools, which are readily available for free from thousands of Web sites on
the Internet. Many of the attacks are serious and costly. The ILOVEYOU virus for
example, was estimated to have infected tens of millions of users and cost billions
of dollars in damage.
In light of these serious threats from cyberspace, it is worth noting that the
discourse on cyberterrorism is something that – fortunately has not been
carried out in its most destructive capabilities. It is, therefore, desirable for the
governments of countries around the world to show credibly that cyberterrorism
does, indeed, exist and is highly probable to be the cause of more serious incidents
in the future.
Individual protection
Currently there are no foolproof ways to protect a system. The completely secure
system can never be accessed by anyone. Most government and militarie classified
information is kept on machines with no outside connection, as a form of prevention
of cyber terrorism. Apart from such isolation, the most common method of protection
is encryption. The wide spread use of encryption is inhibited by the governments ban
on its exportation, so intercontinental communication is left relatively insecure. The
American president administration team and the FBI oppose the export of encryption
in favour of a system where by the government can gain the key to an encrypted
system after gaining a court order to do so. Encryptions draw back is that it does not
protect the entire system, an attack designed to cripple the whole system, such as a
virus, is unaffected by encryption. Others promote the use of firewalls to screen all
communications to a system, including e-mail messages, which may carry logic
bombs or email bombs. Firewall is a relatively generic term for methods of filtering
access to a network. They may come in the form of a computer, router other
communications device or in the form of a network configuration. Firewalls serve to
define the services