Since the early 1990s, the internet has grown technologically faster and with more capabilities than any other type of technology in the world, leaving the United State with a sense of fear with this type of network being a risk to our national security. While most of us find the internet to be a great tool of information, and unlimited capabilities, it can devastate us personally and financially. The internet can increase the risk of theft, fraud and even the possibility to suffer from a cyber-attack or even worse a cyber-terrorism, leaving our country at risk especially for those who work in the government defense agencies and private corporations. In 2003, the conflict with Iraq created a round of speculations that the United States was going to experience cyber-attacks in revenge (Clarke). But, since 1995 there haven’t been any reports of cyber-attacks that would produce panic or damage to U.S. infrastructure or that affects our military operations. By any means this is not a result of idleness by terrorist groups. Between 1996 and the end of 2001 there was 1,813 international terrorist attacks performed. To mention a few that involved citizen targets, there is the Khobar Tower Bombing in June 1996, the Embassy Bombing in East Africa in August 1998, and the USS Cole attack in October 2000. Between 1996 and 2003, to compare between terrorist attacks around 1,813, computer security incidents around 217,394 and cyber-attacks on infrastructure which they were 0, reporters have noted that the cyber terror on infrastructure are an unlikely threat to the security of the United States. In 2005, Cyber-attacks cost were $48 billion to businesses and $680 million to consumers. While a physical attack involves weapons against a specific target, a cyber-attack includes codes that are used as weapons to infect enemies’ computer in order to manipulate the software, system configuration or the use of restricted computer system.
Although cyber-attacks has taken place against critical infrastructure, industry, and companies, the gathered data cannot be used to determine if a terrorist group has initiated these attacks. One of the concept that is creating a big concern in our infrastructure is the term cyber terrorism. Cyber terrorism can be define as the use of a computer as a weapon or as a target by any group who threaten to cause violence and fear with the purpose of influence to an audience or produce a government to change its policies (Wilson). Like terrorism, cyber terrorism is used to intimidate the government in order to change their opinions about social objectives. In order to be consider cyber terrorism, attacks perform against a person of property should cause enough harm, such as attacks that lead to death, explosions, and economic loss. There are many reasons why a terrorist would want to conduct cyber terrorism. First, cybercrime is a cheaper method that consist on the use of a computer and an online connections, without the necessity to buy weapons or any type of explosive. Second, the cyber terrorism remains anonymous, which means the terrorist can use any unidentified user and police force will not be able to identify the terrorist real identity. Third, there is a tremendous amount of people that can be targeted as long as weaknesses are shown. These include but not limited to computers and networks of airlines, government agencies, public utilities, certain individuals who have high level clearance, etc. Fourth, cyber terrorism does not required physical training, the risk of death or any regular activity performed by terrorist. Fifth, cyber terrorism has the probability to affect people directly, in a way that it will generate media coverage, which as we already know is what terrorist wants.
However, cyber-attacks are more usual in our daily basis than cyber terrorism. As a matter of fact there are no records of cyber terrorism in the U.S. According to the FBI, there are 18 cyber’s most wanted due to racketeering, assessing computers without authorization for financial gain, computer fraud, money laundering and so on but these individuals are considered hackers, with no political goals and desires, therefore it cannot be considered cyber terrorism. Based on the information above, it is really hard to determine the level of relevance, or the capabilities of terrorist groups to send an effective cyber-attack (Wilson). Some observers also conclude that Al Qaeda does not seems interesting in cyber terrorism to achieve his goals because they preferred to cause human casualties. There is another group of observers that believe that cyber terrorism are terrorist who works in post-industrial societies, such as Europe and the United States, unlike international terrorist that operate in regions with limited access to our high technology (Wilson). As in any other situation, the federal government has created preventing measures to help improve its own computer security and to urge the private sector to also accept tougher security measures in order to be able to reduce infrastructure vulnerabilities.
So far we can agree that the cyber terrorism threat have been overstated, but we cannot ignore it. A reason for this can be the differences in goals and motives for terrorists. Terrorist try to make political statement and to impose psychological and physical damage on their targets for which the goal is not going to be achieved in cyber terrorism if the effects may not even be noticed or, in the scenario of an economic attack, damage might be slow and cumulative. There are four types of attacks that can be appealing to terrorist to commit cyber terrorism. The first type is large- scale Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks used to attack IT infrastructure. These attack represent some viruses, worm and Trojan horses to control other computers. The distribution is by email or ftp transactions, media sharing or a concealed code in a website. For terrorist this attack can be interesting because it can be rented to third parties as a source of income. They can also be used for terrorist propaganda, or to bring down an adversary. The second type of attack is conventional hacking to gain access to specific computers. In this case if the attack is successful with relevant data, the terrorist can take advantage of it, by stealing or damaging the data such as, financial institution’s records or military top secret documents which are not immune to this attack (Davis). The third type is hybrid attacks, which they can cause the utmost damage. It combine the first two type of attacks with a bomb attack. The last type of attack points toward the physical world, it tend to manipulate IT system that functions are to control systems, such as railway, thus able to cause damage to the physical goods. These four attacks can cause severe damage, but no human lives would be compromised. When human lives are not involved in the scenarios is when is questionable whether these attacks are an interest option for terrorist. A terrorist goal is to be able to see fear in the public and to create physical harm to our society. Cyber terrorism would not fulfill the terrorist goal.
However, we have seen aside from the cyber-attacks, how terrorist have begun using the internet has a source of communication to plan their attacks. By the use of the internet they can communicate with other groups of people who are interested in participating in a terrorist attack and also, terrorist can use the internet to provide information to anonymous contacts (Clarke). Consequently, we can assume that terrorist prefer to use the internet for nonviolent acts because is more effective for the group and the achievement of their goals.
Even though there is no evidence of cyber terrorism, is imperative for people to be aware of the negative impact that can create to our Infrastructure. The Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime is one of the broadest instrument when it comes to address computer crime. Articles 2 and 3 address the illegal access and the illegal interception and articles 4 and 5 address the data interference and system interference which covers the offenses against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data system (Convention on Cybercrime). Also the Department of Justice has an organization called, The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) who is responsible for implementing strategies in combating computer and intellectual property crimes worldwide. CCIPS work with other agencies in order to prevent, investigate and prosecutes computer crimes. The Department of Homeland security has also collaborated to improve cyber security utilizing The Secret Service in order to maintain Electronic Crime Task Forces (ECTFs). ECTF focus on classifying and finding international cyber criminals that are link to cyber intrusions, bank rob, and any other computer crime.
The Nation’s critical infrastructures are comprised of both public and private institutions divided by sectors. These sectors include but not limited to agriculture, food, water, government, emergency services, information and telecommunications, transportation, energy, banking and finances, chemicals and hazardous, and postal and shipping. These cyberspace is the control system of our country (Pearson). It is compose of thousands unified computers, servers, and routers that permit our critical infrastructure to work. Our critical infrastructure, define by the USA Patriot Act, is the system and assets so fundamental to the United States that the loss or damage to those system would have a devastating impact on security, national economic security, national public well-being, and the combination of those matters (Pearson). There is a National strategy to be followed by every individual in order to secure their personal assets, and to be able to control and operate the portions of the cyberspace that we operate. Securing our cyberspace is a challenging strategic that requires the effort from the whole society. By securing our cyberspace we can reduce the vulnerability of a cyber-threat. The internet is also a source to conduct espionage on our government, universities and private companies which can absolutely corrode the public trust in information system. If by any change our system gets corroded by cyber terrorism it will greatly have an effect on our society. Because everyone reacts differently, some people will be directly affected, in the event of a loss to a retail company’s information, others will be distress by the attack to their email and other electronics. Some retail company’s would suffer great amounts of losses due to the panic of the people. The importance is to keep our society informed of the consequences of cyber terrorism and to be aware on how to deal with the threats if it were to present itself. There are many steps that can be taken by each and every party involved. For example, groups that have been directly affected must be more forceful in pursuing the criminal. This might be costly but if the criminal is caught he must and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, assigning very harsh punishments to be able to deter anyone who may think of committing such acts (Clarke). Corporate organizations should also be proactive about the possibilities of these attacks, by remaining updated on information, they should also and most importantly maintain a security posture. It is important that companies improve their security infrastructure. An organization is responsible of the increase to the consciousness on cyber terrorism to their workers. As any other threat we have to understand that it is only a matter of time before something where to happen as for terrorist to penetrate with cyber terrorism and break into our infrastructure. By following the core values of integrity we can supersede any of the threats of cyber terrorism against our society. We have to become more vigilant of our surroundings and by any means get comfortable with the technology that surrounds us. Technology is a powerful tool, that help us to solve any problem and without it the combined knowledge would be lost.

Conclusion:
From our studies we can determined that terrorist are opportunistic. They will use any single weakness we leave unprotected, and they will choose the right time, and the right method of attack according to the weaknesses they observe. Terrorist planned for months even years in some cases, to make an attack without mistake, that can affect our society in a way that we cannot recover easily, like the 9/11 attacks. They also use pre attack surveillance, to be able to provide information to the terrorist leaders. We always have to be vigilant of the small details that can be detrimental to our safety. If, as a society, we understand the importance of securing our information, we can significantly reduce America’s vulnerability, especially to the most damaging attacks.

References:
Clarke, D. (2004). Technology and terrorism. (Vol. 16). Library of Congress
Convention on Cybercrime (2001) Retrieved from: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm
Strasbourg (2007). Cyber terrorism: The use of the internet for terrorist purposes. Council of Europe Pub.
White, J.R. (2014). Terrorism and homeland security (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
White, R., Markowski, T., & Collins, K. (2012). The United States Department of Homeland Security: An overview (custom ed.). Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions.
Wilson, C. (2005, April 1). Computer Attack and Cyber terrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues for Congress. Retrieved from: http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/computerattack.htm