Cyber Terrorism

J. J. Baloch

It was 1996, a computer hacker allegedly associated with the White Supremacist movement temporarily disabled a Massachusetts Internet service provider and damaged part of the ISP’s record keeping system. The concerned service provider tried to stop the hacker from sending out worldwide racist messages under the ISP’s name. The hacker signed off with the threat, “you have yet to see true electronic terrorism. This is a promise.“ Since then the cyber terror attacks know no stopping with every new attack with increased severity.

The ever expanding internet of things has transformed the world to unimaginable levels. From economy to politics, the new culture of human connectivity in real time keeps on innovating new ideas for a new and a parallel human society based on new interactive models wherein the ideas of national security, public safety, national identity, governmental controls and the geographical borders are withering away and losing grounds. It is a phenomenon where “the loudest and the most opinionated” making their marks on public minds. Terrorists have found cyberspace as a new hideout, using anonymity to carry out their distant missions.

Cyber terrorism, like conventional terrorism, is difficult to define. However, simply putting it is a form of terrorism which is carried out using the mechanism of the internet and social websites for communications and audience outreach. For this end in view, the experts have defined cyber terrorism as: ” the intimidation of civilian enterprise through the use of high technology to bring about political, religious, or ideological aims, actions that result in disabling or deleting critical infrastructure data or information” (William Tafoya, Professor of Criminal Justice at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and  Forensic Science at the University of New Haven, USA).

While Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), An American Think Tank group at George Washington University, Washington, USA, refer to cyber terrorism as “the use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (e.g., energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population.” Cyber terrorism is said to be the element of information warfare but on the contrary information warfare is not cyber terrorism. This is quite clear as to what is cyber terrorism.

The latest research at Harvard Kennedy School has found that there are more than forty designated cyber terrorist organisations that maintain their own websites, mostly with anonymous names and use different languages and scripts. Some very infamous organisations using cyberspace include The Unix security Guards, The popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, Irish Republican army, Al-Qaida, ISIS, The Basque ETA Movement and much more based in India and Israel. Some of their purposes are to change public opinion, weaken public support for a governing regime, and even take them down.

Now it is important to understand as to when cyber terrorism did begin and who did start it. The term was coined in the 1980s by Barry Collin, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Intelligence in California. In 1997 Barry Collin was attributed for the creation of the term “Cyber-terrorism”. He defined cyber-terrorism as the convergence of cybernetics and terrorism making what is called cyber-terrorism.

Also the Amendments under the American Information Technology Act, 2000 have defined the term “Cyber-terrorism” under Section 66F. This is the first ever attempt to define the term. According to the insertions, “It includes threatening the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty and denying access to authorised person to access a computer resource.” However, Section 55 of International Penal Code (IPC) fix the punishment of life imprisonment or not less than fourteen years while in many countries the crime of cyber terrorism invokes the death penalty. Pakistan’s Electronic Crime Act, 2016 is little soft on cyber crimes.

In the early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to reduce the exposure of its communication networks to nuclear attack during the days of the Cold War. However, these security controls got weaker in the 1980s when internet opened up for commercial purposes and many brands began to use it not only for their fast communications but also for advertisement and publicity mid-1990s-1990s the Internet-connected more than 18,000 private, public, and national networks, with increasing numbers along with 3.2 million host computers and as many as 60 million users spread across the globe. Now in 2017 the number internet users, spreading to all age groups, has expanded to more than 4 billion worldwide. Smartphones have added fuel to fire.

The terrorist organisation which for the first time began to float their video and audio messages on social websites when they were denied access to traditional media due to regulatory laws was Al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden. But recently, the Islamic state of Abu Baker al-Baghdadi has been using social websites and cyberspace to cultivate their sources of terror worldwide as their personnel are very expert masters in the said job of reaching to the happiest teen victims to attract them towards their cause without much effort.

The Islamic state is seriously working on what the western digital experts are describing as the cyber caliphate. By this idea, these experts refer to the scenario where the Islamic state could grow itself into a cyber state in which its citizenry would include all converts on oath who could be carrying out their dictates in different parts of the world wherever they are locals citizens. The cyber caliphate charge no tax, restrict no freedom, prepare soldiers and many cases rather pay them to stay local to their cause with eternal promise to have a ticket to paradise. Many, mostly those who are fed up with their governments and their discriminatory policies, fall happiest victims to terrorist calls which pitch poor teens against their own societies to intimidate and kill their own people for hollow and distant hope of getting rewards.

The cyber terrorists may use the tools of cryptography, radar jamming, high-altitude aerial reconnaissance, electronic surveillance, electronically acquired intelligence, and steganography for their terror business. The distinction, however, is not the technological tools employed but the context and target, so evaluate the experts. They further maintain that the countries which have mostly been the target of cyber terrorism include United States, Korea, China, Germany, and France.

Many scholars of internet culture and social media are struggling to know as to why the tendency of cyber terrorism is being increased without stopping despite the fact that the governmental regulatory and law enforcement agencies are making their all-out efforts to prevent such terrorism. Some scholarships find that cyber terrorism is preferred because it is very cheaper, easier and less risky. Secondly, the element of anonymity enables cyber terrorists to escape the identification, arrest or any other likely military or law enforcement action. Thirdly, it is also maintained by the research that the borders, distances and other barriers do not matter in it and anything can be done from anywhere. Lastly, the internet offers access to large populations and audiences.

Therefore, the cyber safety is going to be the biggest and the most daunting challenge facing security and law enforcement agencies in near future; it will be too important field to be left to the law enforcement only but communities, businesses, media and academia will have to play their due role for the peaceful tomorrow for our off-springs.

THE WRITER IS A POLICING EDUCATOR & PRACTITIONER…