Bhavya Sharma
Being aware of what goes around is very consequential. Living in a democratic country makes us aware of our rights like right to vote, to speak ,power of decision making and many more.
From my vision, citizens must also be aware of what goes around in technology and cyber world. You all must have heard the word terrorism which probably means spreading fear in the people of country by killing ordinary people for political purposes and now the cyberspace is getting exploited to terrorism. Combating cyber terrorism has become not only highly politicised issue but also an economically rewarding one. It is basically a phrase used to describe the use of Internet based attacks in terrorist activities.
Cyber Terrorism is the convergence of cyberspace and terrorism. Basically cyber terrorism is the use of Electronic gateways to spread fear in the youth/people to support Traditional terrorism. In more simpler words cyber terrorism is using cyber space to cause physical, economical and political damage. So, basically the targets are power plants, military installations, banking Industry and other major centres which affect the lives and well being of many people. The hackers who are very much skilled in terms of hacking can cause massive damage to govt. systems and might leave country in fear.
US National Infrastructure Protection Center (2001) defined cyber terrorism as: “A criminal act perpetrated by the use of computers and telecommunications capabilities resulting in violence, destruction disruption of services where the intended purpose is to create fear by causing confusion and uncertainty within a given population, with goal of influencing a govt or population to conform to political, social or ideological agenda”.
Cyber terrorism attacks in recent years:
* IT firm Solarwinds was the victim of cyber attack which went undetected for several years.As reports claim Hackers widely believed to be operating from Russia were able to spy on security firm companies and govt agencies.
* IT services From Casey was victim of cyber attack and it breached the company’s supply chain resulting in ransom ware attacking 800-1500 of small managed healthcare providers.
* Mobile service provider T-mobile was also a victim which compromised the personal information of 13 million customers.
* The nuclear power plant in Iran was attacked by Stuxnet worm, the worm installed itself in PLANT’S PLC and caused change in rotational speed.
It gets quiet difficult to identify the initiator of cyber attacks because of below reasons:
* They try to originate from anywhere in the world from numerous locations.
* The technology used is simple to use and inexpensive.
* The attacking methods are becoming automated and more sophisticated.
How Cyber Terrorism is spreading?
* A motive which can be either economical or ideological with an intent to cause change or interference.
* This means committing the act, which either uses device or a network to get access to cyber space.
* Its effect may include violence, disruptions, physical damage, data breaches, phishing.
* Mostly the targeted ones are the civilians, information and data sources .
* Network not secured properly i.e not secured with Firewalls/IPS/IDS.
* By the violation of privacy concerns.
* DDOS-Denial of Service Attack.
* Phishing Attacks.
Basically Cyber terrorism Attack is categorised into 3 types:
PHYSICAL ATTACK: An attack against the computer facilities accomplished by the use of weapons to destroy terminals. In simple words, it is accessing your sensitive data from a targeted computer and then extracting it by disabling the content.
ELECTRONIC ATTACK: An attack in which we use electromagnetic pulse to overload computer electricity.
NETWORK ATTACK: An attack in which injecting of malicious code to advantage of software’s weakness or using stolen information to enter restricted computers.
Cyber terrorism attacks can be in many hidden forms, which might not be visible to you but seep into your devices or computer due to lack of security/ upgradation/ links/ attachments or you can say can also be caused by you yourself if you are not following preventive security measures.
* Virus
* Trojan
* Logic Bombs
* Dos
* Cryptography
* Steganography
Let me make you familiar with the terms:
A virus is a form of computer program that when executed self replicates by inserting its own code.
A Trojan is also a type of malware which keeps its identity unknown I.e it misleads its users by making vent look true.
A Logic bomb is a set of instructions embedded in a program which carries a malicious payload that can attack an os or a network.
A DOS is Denial of Service is an attack in which your target is flooded with traffic.
A Cryptography is a method of converting plain text to encrypted format making it uneasy to crack unless you have the key.
A Steganography is technique of hiding secret data with ordinary, non-secret file or message in order to avoid detection.
By reading this you must have got an overview of Cyberterrorism and now the point which comes into consideration is how to prevent this.
To prevent yourselves from this cyberterrorism some points need to be kept in mind :
* Avoid the usage of free Internet facility with no encryption.
* Invest in strong antivirus software that help you the identify viruses and malware before they spread.
* Focus heavily on proactive monitoring of your IT traffic and your assets of organisation.
* Cyber terrorism activities are caused usually due to lack of personnel responsible for security thus, develop a risk-aware culture among your staff members and conduct trainings.
* Routine Cyber terrorism attack drills can add up to your understanding to attacks.
* Make sure your devices especially PC’s are updated and patched.
The author is Cyber Security Analyst HCL Technologies,Noida (India)
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