Definition

Cyber Terrorism involves two words which has their own meaning on its own.

Cyber is actually a prefix but it’s commonly presumed to be the internet or virtual reality. 
The application of the word cyber can be seen in words such as cyber bullying, cyber crime, cyber fraud, cyber racism and so on and so forth. Usually, with the word cyber, it refers to be an act carried out through the internet.

Terrorism means acts carried out by individuals, a group or an organization to create fear with underlying reasons such as politics, religion or ideological goal.

When both words, cyber and terrorism combines together, it means actions or attacks which are carried out using computers and internet to harm certain organizations. It’s not just a matter of hacking and stealing of information. Cyber-terrorism may cause physical violence or extreme financial harm although the attacks do not physically harm individuals as the conventional terrorists do.

According to Paul Strassman, an expert of information warfare, in an interview with BusinessOnlineAsia, Cyber Terrorism is an extension of terrorism and it takes advantage of the fact that our society is increasingly becoming dependent on the Internet. Cyber Terrorism is applied mostly to civilian information infrastructures with the ultimate objectives that are either ideological or political. He went on to state that the most attractive objective in cyber terrorism is to bring the Internet down.

Mark Pollitt special agent of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), further offers a working definition of cyber terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which results in violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents."

Cyber Terrorism is applied mostly to civilian information, infrastructures with the main objective of creating havoc or sending an ideology or political ideology across the community. Therefore, cyber terrorism can be defined as a crime that consists of the use of computing resources, in the virtual world to create fear by coercion or intimidation.


For further reading;
Computer Crime Research Center
(Cyber Terrorism : The new kind of Terrorism)
(What is Cyber-terrorism?)

(by Stephanie & Diyana)