Cyberterrorism
In recent years, cyber-attacks have dramatically risen as high profile attacks continue to make headline s in the world. In some instances, these attacks can be classified as cyber terrorism, whereby electronic attacks from internal and external networks from cyberspace target a particular item. These scenarios can be in the form of catastrophic attacks on national infrastructure or a sequence of well-coordinated independent attacks, which might have huge damage to the nation as a whole and the people if the attackers manage to access the critical national infrastructures.
Critical national infrastructures are key contributors to the national economy, and thus when destructive attacks target them, the economy is greatly affected. Among some of these incidences is when a utility company that distributes electricity to serve critical businesses is disrupted by cyber-terrorist, resulting in normal operations. The attacker interrupts electricity or power distribution to customers leading to huge problems for the company. The entity or area involved cannot carry on their normal operations, and their normal lives are also affected.
Secondly, Cyber terrorists may also disable critical financial institutions’ operation by releasing viruses and worms to the target network after identifying a vulnerability or weakness in an entity’s network architecture. These attacks cause the systems to process large quantities of payloads such that the system cannot respond to the requests of legitimate users. The system thus practically becomes useless since no normal operation can continue with the non-despondence of computer systems. The entity involved incurs huge financial losses and underperforms its critical duties, which impact the national economy.
Finally, cyber terrorists can disrupt the airplanes’ control system such that the controllers cannot properly direct airplanes. The disruption of the air traffic control system may result in pilots losing control of the computerized navigation systems making the takeoff and landing tasks harder.
Thus, it is crucial to effectively protect critical national infrastructures to reduce damages to the people and the economy through the unavailability of information and processing incapabilities. Further, during these attacks, many opportunities are lost since businesses are not in a position to conduct daily operations.
Reference
Gordon, S., & Ford, R. (2002). Cyberterrorism?. Computers & Security, 21(7), 636-647.