View of Cyberterrorism Five Years Later (PREPRINT); Book chapter

摘要

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the cyberterror threat, particularly from al-Qa'ida and the global jihadists who are part of the broader social movement associated with al-Qa'ida. As such, the view offered here supercedes that which the author presented 5 years ago, first to the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism of the Committee on Armed Services in the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2000, and then in an article written shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001. This assessment was based primarily on speculation as to what terrorists would likely be interested in and capable of achieving. The author's overall conclusion was that, at least for the time being, bombs posed a much greater threat than bytes, but the United States should not shrug off the threat. The assessment offered in this paper is based less on speculation and more on indicators of cyberterrorism. These are pieces of evidence that demonstrate a capability or intent to conduct acts of cyberterror. The ones the author has identified so far fall into five categories: (1) Execution of cyber attacks; (2) Cyber weapons acquisition, development, and training; (3) Statements about cyber attacks; (4) Formal education in information technology; and (5) General experience with cyberspace. The categories are listed in order of generally decreasing significance; that is, the actual execution of cyber attacks carries more weight than acquisition and development of cyber attack tools, which in turn carries more weight than simply making statements about cyber attacks. Each category is then examined in terms of the evidence found so far. The author also describes two studies of cyberterror conducted by the Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare at the Naval Postgraduate School in 1999 and 2000.