Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

CASE STUDIES
The following case studies demonstrate each of the taxonomical motivations for con-
ducting cybercrime. The Syrian Electronic army has “moral” motivates but is heavily 
driven by the need for publicity and is linked to the political motive category. This 
group of hackers claims to be conducting attacks in order to get their voices heard. 
The Stuxnet attack is linked to potential political motivation: to prevent the develop-
ment of nuclear weapons. The attacks on the banking systems are linked to financial 
and moral motives whilst also linking to publicity. The Mafiaboy case relates to 
“self-actualization.” A case study for exploitation has not been included in this chap-
ter but further information relating to exploitation can be found in Chapter 11.

---

106
CHAPTER 9
Understanding the situational awareness in cybercrimes
POLITICAL/PUBLICITY/SELF-ACTUALIZATION: THE CASE OF 
THE SYRIAN ELECTRONIC ARMY
The SEA were officially placed on the FBI's advisory list following a number of at-
tacks in 2011. The FBI refers to the SEA as a “pro-regime hacker group” that emerged 
during Syrian anti-government protests in 2011 (
Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
2013
). Information accompanying the advice says that the SEAs primary capabilities 
are spearphizing; web defacement and hijacking social media with an aim of spread-
ing propaganda.
WHO ARE THEY?
A team of eight people—thought to be young Syrians (five of whom had their own 
pseudonyms when their website was available to access)—who are in no way af-
filiated with any political party. They claim to have set up SEA in 2011 in response 
to Western and Arab media who they believe biasedly reported in favor of terrorist 
groups that have killed civilians, and are in favor of the Syrian Army. Currently, the 
group believes that they are protecting their homeland and strongly support the re-
forms of President Bashar-Al Assad.
Schneier (2013)
speculates how much of an actual army the SEA are, and sug-
gests that we do not actually know much about their age or whether they are even 
Syrian. What we do not definitely know is to what extent this group are backed 
by the Syrian government, so it is possible that the SEA are a group of amateur 
geo-Politian's.
In January 2014 their website was removed from Google Searches and their exist-
ing online profiles for twitter, Facebook and Instagram were removed although on 
29th January 2014 they had re-set up accounts. Presumably this is something they 
will continually have to do if they are fighting against large-scale organizations like 
Microsoft (
Hanley Frank, 2014
).
The Facebook and twitter pages allow the group to publically lay claim to the 
attacks but also to voice their political viewpoints. They are particularly critical of 
organizations who deny users their rights to privacy.