Conference presentation
Cyber-terrorism: hackers becoming terrorists or terrorists becoming hackers?
09 Sep 2005
Abstract
The skill required to perpetrate information warfare has been pointed out as one of the obstacles for terrorist organizations. We discuss the ways terrorists may be addressing this. Rogers' (2001) hacker taxonomy is used to dissect the hacker community, so as to identify the subset of hackers (or crackers) with the criminal inclination, and who might be hired or recruited. A generalized profile match reveals that, although there exists some similarity between the profiles, violence or physical harm has not yet been on the agenda for criminal hackers. We consider the possibility of terrorists getting trained in computer hacking for carrying out cyber-terrorism, by utilizing the training resources available freely on the World Wide Web, or by obtaining training through certificate programs. In this paper we analyzed the existing definitions of cyber-terrorism, so as to elicit a definition that is consistent with the true nature of cyber-terrorism. We believe that, while cyber-terrorism has to be treated as a variant of conventional terrorism, varying in the mode of attack, and the immediate target (computer networks/information infrastructure), there are important issues that need to be addressed which have not been sufficiently discussed in the literature. This would show that cyberspace might be a tool of terrorism without being a venue.
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Details
- Title
- Cyber-terrorism: hackers becoming terrorists or terrorists becoming hackers?
- Creators
- Sunil George Abraham - Drexel UniversityLewis Hassell (Author) - Drexel University
- Resource Type
- Conference presentation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Computing and Informatics
- Other Identifier
- 991014632443904721