Global Threat Cyberterrorism

planetary Threat Cyber constitute of terrorist actBy inner organisation policy writers, analysts, and the cosmos. The social and spherical tactics that terrorist cells habituate, the countries that support terrorist root words, and the policies and procedures that befool been riding habitd to counter terrorist actions by the fanny countries are totally becoming unman matureable, jillions are being spent in security measures but the whole belief is untraceable and tail easy change, it is es directial to keep the publics confidence.The study age or the technological succession is magnificently shaping the instruction in which terrorists operate new-fashioned technologies incriminate newer weapons with more(prenominal) destructive powers, more ship fl publicise to ca w contacte plague death and deadening. non only the types of weapons and tar trounces the terrorists select, but in any case the ways in which terrorist cells fork out cemented their intimate structure and the operation of their organisations (Zanini and Edwards, 2001, p. 30). According to Zanini and Edwards, terrorist brass instruments are using learning technologies, much(prenominal) as com poseers, tele confabulation devices, packet, and the Internet to organize and coordinate activities (2001, p. 30).Criminality and Cybercrimes are now continually originating from new technologies, much(prenominal) as the Internet, radio receiver communications, military sciences this all in all performs m all challenges for law enforcement around the knowledge base (Sussmann 2000). Responding to Cyberterrorism and investigating figurer-related crimes pose challenges for law enforcement, as hale as the lawful outline. There are m either loopholes with the conscionableice system that enables those with beady-eyed invention to evade capture.The meshwork faeces be of so much use to terrorists, first of all, the communication that send word be make over the meshwork is endless and alot more thornyer to trace then conventional ways of communication. electronic mail has become one of the cheapest, quickest and anonymous as surface as effective ways of communication today, to communicate with any sort out of the existence. So general the terrorists of this world are able to use the meshing as a platform to communicate and swap cultivation and messages to pull ahead their cause. General information on prats like maps and instructions are astray available, terrorist organisations can crystallise their own meshingPages to promote their ideologies, distribute propaganda and recruit sponsors or supporters. As being a platform for propaganda they are able to give the public directly and make their existence known in foreign circles.Terrorists can excessively obtain funds finished the profits, using serve such as PayPal and western union people can ready monies anonymously so it is perfect for terrorist organisations to operate. In recen t prison end point by and by atrocities such as family line 11th and Afghanistan you have often seen terrorists put up film footage on the internet to promote their groups, when terrorist cells kidnap any westerners, they allow for publicise their crimes by recording beheadings and playing them live on news billets for the world to see.According to news reporters from NBC who have been abducted previously by al- basis, claim that indoors their fortress of caves they have large banks of computing machine legions, communications devices and mass storage info discs.Hamas are another group that use advanced technology for their cause they reportedly use 128 256 bit encryption for their files and communications. The more a country is technologically advanced, the more vulnerable it is to lash out a make believest its infrastructure, at the last count the result of reckoners that the USA have installed is just over 180 zillion, at least 5 judgment of convictions the fle ck that of Japan, s tear down times as much as in Germany and double as many as all of Europe have. US computers neb for 42% of the worlds computing power, whilst China represents only a meagre 1% and Russia 8%.The objective of this paper is to admit a general over belief of the query First of all, we look at the critical c at oncepts of this research. These concepts are terrorism, cybercrime, information warfare, and Cyberterrorism.definition of the Concepts Terrorism Defining the word terrorism itself constitutes problems. The problems that occur when Defining terrorism is the strongy to have an agreed upon definition of terrorism. In other Words, t knockher is no consensus in the inter bailiwick arena as to what terrorism comprises. No story has been made to clarify the concepts beneath which the terrorism heading go into.The problem emerges from the incident that terrorism is solely a policy-making restitution which means A terrorist for one country could be a libert y fighter for another. Furthermore, as Laqueur claimed in 1977 It can be predicted with confidence that disputes approximately a comprehensive, Detailed definition of terrorism will continue for a long time, that they will not result In consensus and that they will make no noticeable contribution to the understanding of terrorism. While the statement seems to be vague in character, the true statement of terrorism is in fact much closer to the truth then imagined.Of course the Human Rights manage and other inter subject agreements set the scene for the standards in terms of benignant rights but the non existence of procedures for the use of responding to terrorism creates confusing, irregularity and severe turmoil. On top of this, any such effort that is taken by a country which is targeted by cyber terrorists whitethorn not have a desire effect since other countries may not consider that group as a terrorist organisation. In terms of legal stature, by not having any by laws as to what Terrorism constitutes, while country 1 may deem a specific act as terrorism, country 2 may judge the action to be a meaningless computer mistake.Enders and Sandler define terrorism as the premeditated use or jeopardise use -of extra- frequent violence or force to gain political objectives through intimidation or fear (1993, p. 829).The US Dep maneuverment of State defines terrorism as premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national Groups or undercover agents unremarkably intended to influence an audience (1999). tieres of Information warfaremany authors have written substantial articles on the clear of Cyberterrorism and such activities, the subject itself is deemed to a very grey area with roughlyly myths and hear say, plain hackers do exist and they can cause serious and malicious damage to an infrastructure but not all are convinced of their overall little terror, many authors publish hard hitting texts to driv e the point sept that our world is at risk from this ruthless wave of technological storming.In his book, crazy house on the Electronic Superhighway Information Warfare, Winn Schwartua, talks about the concept of information warfare in comparison to everything around us including politics, economy, power, fear, survival of the fittest and harmony. He has even led claims that information warfare and information age weaponry will replace betrays and bullets, which are not restricted to the governments of superpowers (Schwartua 1996, p. 16).Schwartua also proposes the classification of information warfare. According to him there are three types of information warfare Class 1 Personal Information Warfare.This includes attacks against an individuals privacy. Cyber attacks on the face-to-face computer or wireless devices or use of private information about an individual are possible examples of personal information warfare.Class 2 Corporate Information Warfare.This classification inv olves large corporate companies of order and focuses on the issues of contender between companies, industrial espionage, misinformation, sponsors, shareholders etcClass 3 spherical Information Warfare.This type of warfare is waged against industries (p. 195). This level of warfare is waged by the most elite individuals through Internet and other computer profits systems fit in to Schwartau (1996).According to Monge and Fulk (1999), the use of new age computing advancement and discordant wireless communication devices has led to the establishment of networks in three ways Firstly, the new technologies have enabled terrorist cells to reduce the transmission time of their encrypted messages so that members of the organization can communicate faster.Secondly, new technologies also lessen communication expenses. simply before the internet, as the same with all of mankind, subtile communication was done by either word of mouth or by recruitd messages. non only have new advancem ents in technology visibly reduced the length of transmission time and considerable expense, but have also significantly change magnitude the scope and complexity of the information due to the combined technologies. Terrorist organisations have now gained their own independence, whereas a time once existed where terrorist and fundamentalistic groups were once linked with governments due to lack of financing now have the platform to better finance themselves due to the broader scope of the internet.Zanini and Edwards compare the paradise Liberation Organization (PLO), who are considered to be more politically and stratified in contrast to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and al-Qaeda, these are considered to be more recent forming and less hierarchical groups more intent on bloodshed then political uprising.Dispersed groups find that the advantages of the new technologies invalidate normal problems gained through distance. In particular, using the World Wide network for comm unication amongst the cells can not only increase the flexibility of peoples time. In fact, these technologies may enable terrorists to operate from nearly any country in the world (Zanini and Edwards, 2001, p. 38).We are seeing that terrorists gain momentous advantage from new technologies and that the world cannot prevent much, due to the general era that we are in, everyone has feeler to anything as long as funds are available. The internet provides the outmatch and most effective communication dial-ups between the terrorist organization and its members.Weimann identifies eight antithetical ways that terrorists use the Internet Psychological Warfare,Publicity and Propaganda, Data Mining, Fundraising, recruitment and Mobilization, Networking, Sharing Information,Planning and Coordination (2004). Different terrorist organisations have different causes so the weave sites they setup can act with a purpose of a communication channel between the various members of the organisation , the supporters and those anonymous sympathisers of the organization, Through this channel, terrorist groups can radiate their harsh messages to the world stage and have regular updates to their recent electioneering and recent activities. They often use the Web site to justify their untrained sadistic murders and killings.These Web sites are a platform to the whole world and can lead to recruitment of potential supporters, and target population or government entities (Weimann 2004).In addition to being a communication order between terrorists and the public, advanced tools, such as codingSteganography These types of advancements are apply by terrorists to convey their messages to the world around them. Here we look at these two tools in more detail CryptographyBruce Schneier describes the act of Cryptography as the art and Science of securing messages (as cited in Taylor et al., 2004, p. 29). The rule is a crop of extreme strong encryption of the data transmitted between c ums to a target. Even though this technology can be useful to those in the private and public sectors it can also be an explosive and detrimental weapon to hide information from law enforcement agencies. (Slambrouck, 1998).Denning argues that the threat to law enforcement and government agencies is widespread she explains four ways that the encrypted data presents danger 1) It will baffle the intelligence community from getting foreign intelligence critical to national security (Denning, 1997).2) The intelligence community will have hard time retrieving vital Information about any given investigation, 3) It may avoid the law enforcement from gathering certify to convict murderenders, 4) The law enforcement community may be unable to avoid attacks or any harm.(Denning 1997)Members of the group Al-Qaeda have been using the newly advanced computer technologies to communicate and relay information to sub-coordinates around the globe, it has been heard in social circles that Al-Qaed a screw the internet as they are able to keep in significant time with all information even though they are found within caves in mountainous regions. According to some research forensics evidence that was collected and compiled after the September 11th attacks shows that terrorist cells often use the internet for their vigorous planning before the attacks. Overall the internet is a witnesser of great value to all those who use it whether it maybe for a schoolchild at university or a terrorist with plans to blow up an airliner, information is bump and in abundance.Terrorists especially from the Arab continent frequently upload their propaganda and messages via news impart as it is the quickest way to get publicised. Most habitually use is the Jazeera TV network, an example of the use of news channels by terrorists is the last-place message sent to Mohammed Atta of Al Jazeera by the two senior members of Al- Qaeda 3 weeks before September 11th, 2001 attacks, what was sent was a simple jurisprudence that showed the four targets the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill which were referred to as faculties in the message. The communication said, The semester begins in three more weeks. Weve obtained nineteen confirmations for studies in the faculty of law, the faculty of urban planning, the faculty of fine arts and the faculty of engineering. Many other political and terror organisations within Europe and America use an encryption broadcast known as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an easily transferable broadcast that provides basic and stronger encryption to use within coded electronic mails for intelligence sharing.SteganographySteganography is the art of conceal data within objects such as Documents, pictures etc files (Collin, 1997). It is a wide method used by many organisations as a simple way to hide information from those who do not have the clearance to view but it can also be severely elbow greaseed by terrorist organisations. This technolo gy relies on security-by-obscurity, basically the person will know that a message is hidden within and once he memory accesses it he be able to read the hidden information behind the veil.From the exterior appearance, a picture would be entirely perceived as a normal picture, but an encrypted message can be extracted from that picture if the person knows where to look. on the face of it there are some major drawbacks to technological advancements, computer stock is very hard to completely erase and often leave a trail for law enforcement agencies to use against criminals, For instance, in Turkey, towards the end of 2000, practically a thousand members of the radical group, Hezbollah, were arrested in a serious of raids and taken into custody, and allegedly about 20,000 pages of documents were recovered from computer archives (Aras Bacik, 2002).Fund Raising and packaging In todays day and age, terrorists have so much available to them, websites are full of propaganda and due to t he advancements in software language barriers are no problem to overcome (Weimann, 2004).The information that the terrorist Web sites usually give is usually about general history, their activities, their ideology and political statements, current news regarding their activities, as good as information about their targets, often they will also give out rogue information on targets which will get the security dish outs into a twist, but this information is designed to mislead.The way in which the Internet is used to raise money by terrorist organisations is a good example as to how information technology can provide new ways to fund their operations. Cost of Cyberterrorism. Between 1993 and 1995, there were 40 threats made directly to banks in the US and Great Britain. It is reported that in January 1999, a investment bank compensable roughly ten million pounds after receiving a threat against their computer systems, the hackers reportedly crashed a computer in order to show the s eriousness of their intent, the bank gave in and paid them off, knowing that the authorities were helpless to act and if their systems did crash there would be alot more then 10 million pounds worth of losses. It is estimated that in coupled Kingdom, during the three years between 1993 and 1995, terrorists gained more than 400 million pounds (Statistics on Cyber-terrorism, 2000).The Security Industry Survey carried out in 1999 largely showed that the number of companies that were successfully penetrated went up from 12% in 1997 to 23% in 1998. bitchy code is used by hackers which attack systems is devastating as the code mutates and leaves systems vulnerable to attack. The most costly malicious code attacks were Low besiege in 2000 at $ 8.75 billion and Code Red at $ 2.62 billion (Wiederin, Hoefelmeyer, and Phillips, 2002) The consequences of cyber terrorist attacks are not as devastating as the physiological terrorist attacks, at least until now. For example, cyberspace provides opportunities for e-bombs and cracking down a Web site but the ramifications of these acts seem less significant than the effect of a somatogenetic bomb killing hundreds of people in a matter of seconds, such as the bomb attack in Nairobi in 1998 and okey City in 1995. Regarding the potential attacks outlined by Collin, they would be difficult to execute, because of the human factor in these processes. For example, even if it is possible to hack an air traffic control station, there are pilots who have been trained to see to it unusual drops.Cybercrime Cybercrime can be looked on as computer-related activities which are prohibited and or destructive, the sole object points at thievery, dishonest means of obtaining cash or leading others to stray by the attacking of infrastructure. Cybercrime can be conducted through global electronic networks (Thomas and Loader, 2000, p. 3). Cybercrime can be defined as a crime committed in a cyber environment, including the Internet, computer networks, and wireless communication systems. In other words, cybercrime involves crime committed through use of the personal computer.Cybeterrorism is the word given to acts of malicious intent with the convergence of internet and Terrorism, networks, servers and computers alongside data storage are constantly at threat from unlawful attacks, for an attack to qualify under the Cyberterrorism heading it should result in violence against persons or property, at the minimum it shouild cause or succumb fear. Acts upon infrastructure, economic loss, plane crashes and explosions are all forms of Cyberterrorism.Cyberterrorism and Cybercrime makes the job for law enforcement even harder ,law enforcement and policy makers already struggle under immense pressure to execute targets and maintain the peace proving a safe environment for the public. Due to the nature of cyber-criminals rerouting their trail through international countries, a response to such a malicious threat requires inte rnational cooperation involving participation of all concerned parties .However, parliamentary procedure today is cased within the technological bubble, everything is controlled by computers and vulnerability emerges from increased reliance on technology, lack of legal measures, and lack of cooperation at the national and international level represents major obstacles toward effective and immediate response to these threats. In all the sheer lack of global peacekeeping in terms of responding to cyberterrorism and cybercrime is the general problem.Pollitt (1997) defines Cyberterrorism as the premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or covert agents. Terrorists and cyber criminals will spend sometimes months to exploit vulnerabilities in a system, all the time remaining undetected and hitting key sectors including technical, legal, Polit ical, and cultural, as well as defence. Such a broad range of vulnerabilities can be dealt with by Comprehensive cooperation which requires efforts both at the national and international level. respectable opinions suggest that cyberterrorism is split into three general classificationsDisruptive and destructive information attacks, Disruptive and destructive information attacksFacilitation of technology to support the ideology, and Communication, Fund raising, recruitment and Propaganda Terrorist use for the InternetTerrorists use the internet for mainly communication, essentially covert operations and as a means for a new command and control infrastructure. Access to information via the Internet and the world wide net, as well as maps for target locations and applications that will help with encryptions and monitoring. Technical data is widely accessible on the net for weapons and bomb construction.Use of the internet as a platform for distributing propaganda on terrorist groups and causes, and related recruitment of individuals, Examples of AttacksIn 1998, what was once known as the first attack by terrorists against a countries computer systems was when Tamil guerrillas jammed the servers located at all Sri Lankan Embassies with 800 emails a day over a 2 weeks period with messages such as We are the Internet Black Tigers and we are doing this to disrupt your communicationsThe statement couldnt have been more true, everything stops, whilst security specialists comb the networks using off the circumvent virus removers and other software to get rid of the spam.During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, NATO computer systems were targeted in a huge blitz by some(prenominal) eastern European countries in a protest to object against the bombings. Businesses and public organisations with ties to NATO were targeted and considerable money was lost in the turmoil.More recently Estonia was hit by a spate of terror acts from Russia in what is deemed a Cyberterrorism act of vengeance for the movement of a Soviet-era war memorial commemorating an strange Russian who died fighting the Nazis. Government websites that commonly received 1000 hit a day were getting 2000 hits per second, causing the servers to crash and be fold down for hours, even days and weeks.The public just think that a few guys with nothing better to do sit on their pcs and create viruses and mess around, but there is no actual threat to physical life but this is a myth, the business world and people within are often exposed to grave harm.Another example screening the problems of hackers infiltrating web sites and Web site defacement was between attackers from Pakistan and India. At the time of much unrest between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir in 1999, both countries computer geniuses also fought in the cyber world. Pakistans experts hacked the Indian Army Web site www.atmyinkashmir.org and left anti-Indian statements about the Kashmir issue. The Indian Government, in retaliation, cut off all network access to the Web site of the prominent Pakistani newspaper, Dawn (Varma, 1999).Processes of attackDifferent forms of attack are available to hackers and those who appetency to deface or destroy data, they use malicious code attacks Malware. The term malware represents the combination of malicious and software (Furnell, 2000, p. 143).There are different types and processes of malware attacks. The common forms of malware attacks are viruses, worms, trojan horses and software bombs. These are examined in detail in the following section.Internet worms or VirusesThese viruses and worm programs are designed to plant themselves within the codes of programs and lie dormant till the hacker requires them to destroy or shit down computers they can hijack the computer and can assume and destroy email lists and address books. Communication devices such as mobiles and organiser are also hot items to target.Viruses Brunnstein, Fischer-Hubner, and Swimmer def ine a virus as a non-autonomous set of routines that is capable of modifying programs or systems so that they obligate executable copies of itself Furnell, 2000, p. 144).Viruses are malicious software that has the ability to replicate themselves, the virus will attach itself to other applications and software and slowly spread as infected files and disks are used by users. With every new host, the malicious virus inserts itself and executes its payload, they are often weird and strange warning messages or look like innocent files when clicked can wipe all the files from the hard drive (Taylor et al., 2004).A brilliant example of how a virus can be very expensive is the much publicised I savour YOU virus. ICSA, a computer security company estimated the cost of the I lovemaking YOU virus to be up to 1$ billion(Miastkowski, 2000).Worms Unlike Viruses, worms do not attach themselves to other software programs. They exist entirely as separate programs and they can spread themselves au tomatically (Stephenson, 2000, p. 37).Trojan horseTrojan horses Hackers and attackers will often use Trojan horses to gain access to big and highly sensitive data information, often a Trojan is used where access is restricted and the hacker is lucky enough to find a Backdoor basically a loop within the code for access, for example, the targets password is captured by the dormant Trojan, it will replicate it, and forward it to the hacker.There are differences between viruses and Trojan horses, firstly the Trojan horses will not replicate or infect any other files on the hard disk. Secondly, the Trojan buck can stand alone without any attachment to other applications and programs. And finally, the target source may not always be entirely aware of the fact that a maliciously intended Trojan horse was sent to him or her. Basically Trojan horses can be sent with under covert means where the intended target perceives it to be harmless, like an email attachment that looks conspicuous e nough and looks safe enough. For example, the attacker may put up a message that may be interpreted as neighborly information for the receiver, such as a link to a competition etc PhloodingThis is a new wave of attack used by hackers and fraudsters to at the same time launch geographically distributed attacks that targets a businesss authentication or network log on structure, with the goal of overloading its central authentication server, these attacks have originated from all across the globe, they fail a wireless Access points (APs) with login requests using sextuple password combinations which have the ability to severely slow down logins and critically interfere with broader network operations causing major security breaches. Security specialists reckon businesses with multiple office locations served by a single identity management server could be particularly vulnerable to Phlooding attacks.MalwareProgrammes such as the Trojan Horse hides a malicious code within a docum ent that will in turn collect usernames and passwords for email circulars amongst other information, These programs can download programmes without the user knowing and relay attacks against other computers remotely. An infected computer can be controlled by the attacker and directed to carry out functions normally available to the systems owner.HackingNowadays increasingly the method of attack most favoured is the art of hacking, to use the knowledge of codes and programming to access systems to find secrets. Government computers in Britain have a network intrusion detection system, which monitors traffic and alerts officials to ill-usage or anomalous behaviour.BotnetsThese are compromised networks that the attacker can exploit. Deliberate programming errors in the software can easily remain undetected, Attackers can exploit the errors to their advantage to take full control of the computer remotely. Botnet can be used to steal information from highly encrypted computers or to c ollect sensitive information such as credit card numbers by sniffing or logging the keystrokes of the victims keyboard.Software BombsThis software acts like a bomb connected to a detonator, which may contain an execution of a program. The malicious code may be hidden in a program, and once the program is activated, malicious code becomes activated. For example, a sacked employee who feels dissatisfied with the employer who has access to internal software may upload and hide a software bomb in the companys payroll program.In 1992, an employee of the United Kingdoms Chilworth Communications was convicted of position a logic bomb before his resignation in September 1990. The bomb was triggered in October 1990 and damaged important files that cost the company more than $50,000.(Larry Greenemeier, InformationWeek, June 12, 2006)Keystroke LoggersThis is a device that can be fitted to the keyboard or an application that can be installed on the computer that automatically records every key that is typed on the keyboard, obviously all information such as passwords, email, basically anything that is typed on the keyboard will get logged and then accessed by the third party.Denial of service AttacksOverloading a computer system with data so that it can no longer function. This is the method allegedly used by the Russian hackers which targeted the Estonian government computers in May.Phishing and SpoofingThis is a system of attack designed to magic guile an organisations computer user to reveal passwords and confidential data such as card elaborate. Those that use this method impersonate a trusted source such as a bank or a well known service to persuade the victim to hand over the details in complete faith.IP spoofing After overloading the system, an attacker can get to to be an authorized system, while blocking the actual systems service. Since the flooded system cannot respond to the inquiries, the unauthorized system will receive all of the accredited Computers packets (Stephenson, 2000, p. 46).Force Multiplier EffectsDifferent types of Cyberterrorism may also be used to multiply Cyber-terrorists commit acts of terrorism simply for personal gain or sometimes out of boredom. A less known group known as Chaos Computer Club was discovered in 1997. They had created a simple Active X Control for the Internet that could trick the Quicken accounting program into removing money from a users bank account