Cyber Attack via Internet on the Infrastructure and Human Life

Attack on Infrastructure

Cyber Space has become a target for cyber-terrorism because the objective is not to disable some simple desktop computers and the network, but rather the nations resources are being attacked including not just national databases of information but also the critical infrastructures that those machines control. Cyber-terrorists attack institutions of governmental and federal agencies, because this is an easy “action-at-a-distance” method of attempting to destabilize any country.

Terrorists can enact their acts of terror from the comfort of their own homes often half way around the world, and do not have to pass through airport security screening in person to affect their harm .The motives behind these attacks are the same as those of “physical” terrorism and include idealistic activism, revenge, religious, and many others. Nations are naturally moving to the defensive with their information systems although they are starting to employ offensive techniques in their information operations as well.

One of the main objectives of cyber terrorism is infiltration of computer systems or “hacking.” Compromised systems can then be directly manipulated or controlled by the hacker or the perpetrator can leave a “backdoor” or weakness in the computer’s security that allows the hacker to easily return and control the system later. Cyber terrorists also create attacks using viruses for damaging information.

Cyber terrorists can paralyze one nation or any other country by focusing their assault on the financial system; it can debilitate any nation. The most critical infrastructures are energy, banking and finance, transportation, telecommunications, water, human services, and so forth. Cyber-terrorism is a real "physical" world concern in modern times as nations resources are almost all exclusively directly or indirectly under the control of computer systems which are in turn connected with a complex network of interdependence hence creating unprecedented levels of vulnerability and risks in the infrastructure by way of compromise of those computers .

Terrorist behavior is unpredictable, and the culture is another subject of studies. Nations need to understand the different mechanisms involved in terrorism behavior, and such understanding must be comprehensive to include the social, physiological, political, and cultural aspects. The terrorist behavior aspires to attain different goals, and external objectives. The strategies for mitigating the activities are similar to real “physical” world counter terrorism and the measures taken are defense and deterrence for fighting terrorism.

Infrastructure in the United States is considered government, public health, transportation, information, and telecommunications that compromise physical systems that are connected with components that can compromise the economy. Rhodes and Willemssen (2004) state that one nation needs to protect its infrastructures from outside attacks, because computers are in crucial league with almost all operations.

The major concern is cyber security in the private sector as well as government. Today, all computers are connected with networks and there are critical infrastructures around the world. In addition, Goodman (2008) discusses how terrorists made use of cyberspace and the approaches of it. Furthermore, there are billions of Internet users around the world; approximately 1.3 billion, whose communication depends on technologies such as wireless, VoIP, and satellites. In the 90’s the growth of telephony actually exceeded that of the Internet, and it started to expand into developing countries.

Computer network vulnerabilities have a high risk, and can damage the critical infrastructure at a national level. In fact, terrorists use different weapons such as explosives, because their goal is to destroy the economy of nations. The main concern and the most critical infrastructure is the cyber attacks to finance, telecommunications, and electrical power networks, because these form the main foundation or backbone of our functioning society and are therefore part of attraction to cyber terrorists.

All nations are looking for ways to protect and mitigate attacks from outsiders and add more security. Protection against cyber terrorism is a good practice, because the impact of such a form of terrorism is that it damages a social structure and commerce. The mind and ideology of cyber terrorists are incredible, because they destroy global trade and finance.

As a scholar practitioner, recommendations are given for supporting the critical infrastructure (e.g., Internet) of our nation, including communications and commerce. People and organizations must understand security problems, and government intervention as a part of the strategy, and the safeguarding of the nation. Critical infrastructure protection is important to establish security from the beginning.

(by Kris)

Attack on Human Life 

In general, there are possibilities that a cyber terrorism attack will not endanger any human life. For a terrorist, the aim of their action is to bring fear to the public and leaders of a nation, therefore cyber terrorist have opted to attack the control systems of certain industries to achieve their alleged aims. Some of these industries include banking, travel, financial market, health and in a worst case scenario the nuclear industry.

Although to date there have been no report of a cyber-terrorist attack have claimed lives or cause bodily injuries, there have been instances where this could have easily happened if the attack was not stopped or prevented on the right time. For example, in 1997, a hacker tampered into a control tower service in the Worchester Airport in Massachusetts. Fortunately this incident merely disrupted the services but did not cause any collision between the planes which would have resulted in loss of lives.

The worst case scenario on a cyber terrorist attack on human life would probably occur when a control system of a nuclear plant is attacked. If this happens, there would certainly be a nuclear catastrophe. One instance where this almost happened was in the year 2003 when a Slammer worm manage to corrupt the control system of a nuclear power plant in Ohio, US. However, the worm was unable to create further damage to the system as plant was closed and the system was offline when the attack had taken place.

In a more recent case of cyber attack on the nuclear industry happened in Iran in the 2010 when a new worm identified as Stuxnet invaded the control system of Iran’s nuclear installations, causing the centrifuges to spin so rapidly that they began to break. At the same time, the malware fed false signals to the plant's computer system so the operators thought the machines were working normally. Fortunately, the attack was quickly discovered and successfully stopped by the Iranian scientists working on the plant. Although the incident did not report of any nuclear effect on the health yet, however the attack manage to effect the scientist psychologically, whereby dropping their confidence and making them feel vulnerable.

A cyber terrorist attack on human life does not only mean that the attack the cause’s loss of life or bodily injury, it may also affect the person in other ways, such as ruining their financial stand or affect emotionally or mentally. For example, attack on the banking control system by a malicious virus that can trick the accounting program to remove money from a customer’s bank account. The consequence of this is that these types of attacks can send a person to the verge of bankruptcy and indirectly affect the lives of many.

(by Shandra)


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