Physical acts of terrorism have had a high profile after Sept. 11, but the United States also faces a serious and increasing threat from cyber-terrorists, according to Andrew McPherson of Dartmouth's Institute for Security Technology Studies.
According to McPherson, not only do terrorist have the will and means to carry out attacks on infrastructures, the potential for such an attack is high. Cyber attacks combined with a form of physical terrorism could have devastating potential.
"The cyber attack would hinder communications flow and have an economic impact," McPherson said. "Critical infrastructures such as gas, power, banking and finance, transportation and communication all depend on information systems."
"Right now, cyber security is of huge importance. Cyber attacks immediately follow physical attacks, and they are increasing in volume, sophistication and coordination," he said.
Such attacks can take many forms, such as the defacement of web pages and computer worms like the recent Nimda worm. Cyberterrorism can be used to spread false information, halt internet traffic and direct users to bogus sites.
Attacks usually come from terrorist groups, nation-states involved in conflict with the United States, individual terrorist sympathizers, anti-U.S. hackers and thrill seekers. While the most common attackers are individuals, cyberterrorism provides a way for nation-states to harm U.S. government networks or U.S. industry without engaging in military conflict.
While serious incidents are not common, nuisance attacks occur constantly. High-profile sites like NASA are frequently attacked, and systems administrators that used to see one or two attacks a week now deal with one attack every 10 seconds.
Something as small as not being able to access a Hotmail account or getting a virus by email could possibly be a result of a cyber attack.
In order to protect against terrorism, McPherson recommended that systems administrators use firewalls and PC users not leave their machines constantly running, to limit exposure to viruses.
ISTS hopes to develop technology that would help law enforcement catch cyber-criminals, according to McPherson.
McPherson presented ISTS's recently released report "Cyber Attacks During the War on Terrorism: A Predictive Analysis" to a small crowd of students and faculty yesterday in Collis Commonground.
Formed last year on a Congressional mandate, ISTS issued its report detailing their research on protection against cyberterrorism in September.
