Cyberterrorism

Cyberterrorism (cyber-terrorism, cyberterrorism, cyberterrorizm, from armor. terror is fear, horror) is the most dangerous kind of cyber crime, including:

• implementation of acts of terrorism using information and computer telecommunication technologies (ICT);
• politically or ideologically motivated use of IT technologies for carrying out the attacks on life support entity management systems, computer systems, popular information resources, etc. with the purpose to destabilize a situation in the region or in the country in respect of security, to cause serious destructive effects for crucial infrastructures and/or to cause panic and to seed fear among the civilian population.

The term appeared in the 1980th years when this phenomenon began to be widely adopted first of all in the developed countries of the world in connection with a universal computerization and digitalization of economy and practically all types of activity of the person and mankind.

By 2020 all countries and the large organizations attach great value to fight against cyberterrorism. Modern cyberterrorism is a component of hybrid wars and one of efficient levers of achievement of political goals on the international scene. Feature of cyberterrorism is the aspiration attacking to make the conducted terrorist attack not only having dangerous effects, but also widely known to the population, to achieve great public outcry.

The modern cyberterrorists (cyber-terrorist) owning a cyber weapon, i.e. technical and software tools of warfare in a cyberspace as one of the main tasks put capture (taking under control), destruction or violation of work of computer networks and systems of the large organization, the industry or the country, and in certain cases and the international organizations. Under certain conditions actions of cyberterrorists can lead to emergence of large-scale environmental, economic disasters and mass death of people. For example, if malefactors manage to get access to entity management systems of nuclear power, different types of public transport, military facilities, with threat of application of means of mass defeat as today components of nuclear, chemical and biological weapon became more available, than it was several years ago.

All countries and the large organizations attach great value to fight against cyberterrorism as a kind of terrorism and with cyber crime (cybercrime) in general, and this problem is solved also at the international level as the cyberspace has no borders. For ensuring cyber security ad hoc methods, means and the systems of cyberdefense (cyberdefence, cyber defense, CD, cyber defense system) are created both pro-active (proactive cyberdefence), and active (active cyberdefence, ACD). These are the preventive measures directed to warning and counteraction to the possible harmful attacks on computers and computer networks of the state or the organizations, to decrease in level of operational risks and also to minimization of damage and recovery time in case of the taken place cyber attacks.

With growth of strength the cyberterrorism threat always will be present at the world, moreover, in a number of the countries it can be one of components of state policy. In the countries for which the problem of cyber crime is especially sharp (it is first of all the USA, China, Russia), not only the technical, but also legislative measures directed to counteraction of cyber crime and to cyberterrorism are accepted. As the methods applied by cyberterrorists in many respects match methods which cybercriminals use, and actions of heads of the companies, the organizations should be directed to preserving of business continuity and observance of measures of information security.