Cyberterrorism 1

Cyberterrorism

Rick Warner

HSM438

Jeanette Cobabe

July 4, 2012
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Cyberterrorism

“Cyberterrorismm is specifically a premeditated, politically or ideology motivated attack or

threat of attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data that can

result in violence against civilian targets.” Taylor, Digital Crime

In 2007 Russia lunch a three week long cyberattack against Estonia. This attack marked the

first known time of a state attacking another state in cyber-warfare. “Estonia, a country of 1.4

million people, including a large ethnic Russian minority, is one of the most wired societies in

Europe and a pioneer in the development of "e-government". Being highly dependent on

computers, it is also highly vulnerable to cyber-attack.” Guardian.co.uk Russia lunch a three

week long denial of service literally halting government services in Estonia. The DoS was so

severe it caught the attention of NATO. NATO responded by deploying all of their top IT

specialist to strengthen the Estonia defenses. Russia lunch the attack against most of the top

government sites to include parliament and the countries two biggest banks all in response to

Estonia moving a World War 2 statue. “The actual damage is unknown but the denial of service

included the Estonian presidency and its parliament, almost all of the country's government

ministries and political parties, three of the country's six big news organizations and finally two

of the biggest banks; and firms specializing in communications” guardian.co.uk The resolution

was that Estonia eliminated the attacks and restored their sites and Russia stopped further

attacks. One of the biggest points in this case is the involvement of one state attacking another

and NATOs involvement to help eliminate the attack. NATO does not define cyber-attack as a

military act, so according to their definition it is not an act of war and the other point is that even

though it is known that this was a Russian attack it is very difficult to prove it was the Russian
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government who launched the attack. This could be an example of the perfect crime for a

government to launch.

In 2008 during South Ossetia war between Georgia and Russia cyberattatcks were used

against each other. South Ossetia was not affected as much as the Georgians were because its

infrastructure was not as dependent on the cyber world as theirs was. “Georgia's parliament

website was defaced by a group calling itself the "South Ossetia Hack Crew". The site's contents

were replaced with a montage of images of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and

Adolf Hitler.” Computerweekley.com As comical as this may sound, it is still very serious. The

malicious attacks of these hackers shut down the government sites and were entirely taken

offline while they were being recoded. By these sites being offline, it limited how the Georgian

government could communicate with their citizens. Which during this timeframe was very

important considering they were just involved in a civil war. Both sides openly accused each

other of using cyber warfare during their cease fire agreement. It was easy to accuse Russia

because of the accusations that were made before. Both countries since the war have reportedly

upgraded their cyber defensives hoping to eliminate any further attacks or stoppages.

“The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the

past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and

North Korea. Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and

implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said

U.S. officials familiar with the hacking. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because

of the sensitivity of the widespread intrusions and the resulting investigation.” USAtoday.com

China is the prime suspect and trails of the attacks pointed back to them, but China also has

many unsecure networks that other hackers could use as gateways to the attack on the State
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Department. Once the attacks were found out, State Department instructed all its members to

change their passwords and they also took down some new programs that were being used to

transmit cryptic information. Attacks such as these within our governments systems are a

constant threat. Because of this threat, our government has employed some of the greatest and

most intelligent computer technicians. They have also put stronger emphasis on computer

security and even established a Cyber Command whose job is not only to stop these attacks but

also use the cyber world to our advantage during peacetime and war.

Cyberterrorism should be a growing concern for everyone. It is not only hard to prove but

now governments are conducting cyber operations against each other. Without trained

professionals to stop these attacks there’s no telling how much damage could be done by these

attacks. I personally know many people who wish their degree or background was in

Information technology.
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References

-Taylor, R. W., Fritsch, E. J., Liederbach, J., & Holt, T. J. (2011). Digital crime and digital

terrorism (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

-Traynor; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/17/topstories3.russia: accessed 4July2012

-Unknown; http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240086638/Cyberattacks-became-part-of-

Russia-Georgia-war: accessed 4July2012

The Associated Press; http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-11-state-

department_x.htm; accessed 4July2012

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