Emerging Threats & Counter Measures

Discussion 1:

Cyber terrorism is considered as the terrorism activity in which attackers attack on the properties and affect the computer, information by taking support of internet. This kind of terrorism activities may cause physical harm to the real world and can disrupt the infrastructure as well.

 

Cyber attacks are generally done to harm particular person but it has no specific goal but cyber terrorism activities are being performed to hurt specific component of political system of the country (Taylor and et.al. 2019). Cyber terrorism activities are being performed with specific motive. The main motive of this kind of criminal activities is to destroy the enemies and their operational capabilities as well. By attacking on the system terrorist try to finish the operational capacity of the nation so that it may fail to handle the critical situations well. Another major motive of cyber terrorism is to misrepresent the reputation of the firm. Many big nations have strong infrastructure facilities and have sound system as well. If terrorists attack on these systems then it may cause harm to the nation. Special there is presence of specific motive then cyber attack is considered as cyber terrorism

 

The main target of such kind of terrorism activities are economy of the nation and particular industry which is performing well in the market. By attacking the industry, nation may get failed to handle the security effectively.

These attacks are done with the intention to destroy the organization and hurt the public of that country. If there is presence of this feature then this would make the cyber attack as the cyber terrorism activity (Venkatachary, Prasad & Samikannu, 2018).

The main agenda of cyber attack is to gain financial benefits or to hurt the other person but when these attacks are performed to destroy the political system then it would turn the entire situation in to the cyber terrorism. These professional hackers perform such illegal activities to hurt the entire political system of the country.

 

 

 

 

References

Taylor, R. W., Fritsch, E. J., Liederbach, J., Saylor, M. R., & Tafoya, W. L. (2019). Cyber crime and cyber terrorism. New York, NY: Pearson.

 

Venkatachary, S. K., Prasad, J., & Samikannu, R. (2018). Cybersecurity and cyber terrorism-in energy sector–a review. Journal of Cyber Security Technology, 2(3-4), 111-130.

 

Discussion 2:

 

Cyber-attacks are strikes launched by cyber criminals using computers against a single computer or multiple computers. The purpose of cyber-attacks is usually to maliciously steal information from computers or use a breached computer to attack other computers. The methods used to launch cyber-attacks include malware, phishing, denial of service among others. Cyber attacks are preventable. Cyber terrorism on the other hand, is the use of the internet to perform violent activities that can lead to the loss of lives or serious bodily harm. Cyber terrorism is the use of computers or devices to cause harm to other uses for personal gain of the cyber terrorist. These two terms, even though may seem to mean the same thing, refer to two different acts.

 

Cyber-attacks are taken to be more information oriented as compared to cyber terrorism. A cyber attack can be viewed as a launchpad for future cyber terrorism. The theft of information from personal computers through the illegal access to passcodes and the breaking of security barriers is a cyber-attack. When such information and data are used to perform other serious crimes like blackmail, it becomes cyber terrorism. Cyber terrorism is therefore more violence oriented than cyber-attack. A cyber terrorist can deny the user of a personal computer the use of their own computer. That is classified as a cyber-attack. If the terrorist then goes forward to steal information from such computers and blackmail the user or cause actual bodily harm to the user, it becomes cyber terrorism (Xuan & Zuyi, 2017).

 

An attack can be classified as cyber terrorism if the attack is used for acts of terrorism. These acts include grievous bodily harm, blackmail, murder or robbery and such like vices. Cyber attacks are used to launch cyber terrorism. This is because cyber attacks involve the access of computers and/or the illegal access of information and data in the affected computers. A cyber attack can be termed as cyber terrorism if it affects many users at once.

 

Reference

 

Xuan Liu, & Zuyi Li. (2017). Trilevel Modeling of Cyber Attacks on Transmission Lines. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 8(2), 720–729.