What is Terrorism by use of IT system?

By the FBI's definition, terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. Cyber-terrorism is the use of computing resources to intimidate or coerce others. More concisely-- Using technology to commit harmful acts on the government or a society in general.


What are its IT components?
Because terrorism is a widespread fear among many countries, many people think that it requires some high level, radioactive, discombobulating machine, but the truth is, that machine can most likely be found in your own home! The resources needed for a cyber attack are mainly composed of two things: a computer and a connection to the Internet.


Advantages
While there are no advantages to terrorism for those being attacked, there are ways to protect yourself and potentially protect your country against acts of terrorism.

1. Protect Passwords- All your passwords should be unique and difficult to guess
2. Change network configurations when you suspect or know that something is wrong or unusual
3. Check with vendors for upgrades and patches
4. Check your logs to help detect and trace hackers
5. Upgrade your firewalls
6. Encrypt data
7. Do not share personal information
8. There are government agencies such as: Commission of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Warfare Center that aim to protect us.
9. If you are unsure--- DON'T DO IT! Anything and everything on the Internet can be potentially dangerous, if you don't recognize the sender in an e-mail, don't open it, always check to see if the site you are on is secured.

Disadvantages
Technology is always on the rise and there are constantly new advancements in technology. At first glance, this appears amazing, so many people now have access and knowledge to things only imagined before, the only problem-- this includes hackers. People looking to do harm on this country have access to things that we do as well, and over the past years we have become so dependent on computers than an attack could be catastrophic. In today's society if a government computer was infiltrated by something like a logic bomb, many of our country's defenses would immediately go down as well.


Social and Ethical Impacts
The act of hacking is socially and ethically bankrupt.

• If a system is hacked, it calls into question the reliability of that system.
• If hacked, information can be changes which questions the integrity of the information on that system
• The security of the people in that country is jeopardized by infiltration.
• The government's privacy and policies and standards is risked-- Information meant to be kept confidential can be released
• Once cyber warfare begins, it will be difficult of not impossible to stop, as technology continuously changes.
• The act of the computer being infiltrated involves people and machines

• If hackers get involved in the business and employment field they could wreak havoc on financial records and cost people job's
• In the Health department, medical records could be changed, possibly causing death
• Scientific experiments could be released possibly including bio-hazardous chemicals
• Important government documents could be released to the public.

Interesting Information

Google Earth- while it can be used for everyday simulations Google Earth has tremendous power, just as you fly of the Rio Grande in your flight simulation a terrorist could be using the same tool to map out our country.


Articles: The next war will be a cyber war.
http://www.spacewar.com/cyberwars.html
http://www.mcafee.com/us/research/criminology_report/default.html
http://csciwww.etsu.edu/gotterbarn/stdntppr/cases.htm

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Sources:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/technology_and_terrorism.php
http://csciwww.etsu.edu/gotterbarn/stdntppr/