Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

(
Marris, 2010
)
To date, Israel has not publicly commented on the Stuxnet attack but has con-
firmed that cyber warfare is now at the forefront of their defense doctrine, with a 
military intelligence unit set up specifically to pursue both cyber-related defensive 
and offensive options (
Williams, 2009
). American officials have indicated that the 
virus originated abroad.
Either way the nature of cyberspace means that it is challenging to find out ex-
actly who is responsible for the activities conducted, the actions taken, and the origin 
of an activity. It is especially difficult to prove who is behind Stuxnet. Although it 
does seem that Stuxnet was designed to be destructive and is the first attack of its 
kind. Given the facts available about this incidence, it would more than likely fall 
under the political category although it could fall under moral or financial categories 
if further information surrounding the attack was made public (Chapters 3 and 13 
also make use of this example).
THE CYBER-ATTACKS ON BANKS
ON A GLOBAL SCALE
Operation High Roller consisted of a series of fraud activities targeted at the bank-
ing system across the world. It made use of multifaceted automation to collect data 
in order to raid bank accounts including commercial accounts and institutions of 
all sizes. This sophisticated method for data collection allowed the operation to run 
faster. A review in 2012 of the operation led 
McAfee and Guardian Analytics
found 
that nearly $78 million was removed from bank accounts due to this attack. The op-
erations servers were based in Russia, Albania and China, but the attacks started in 
Europe, moved to Latin America and then targeted the US. Whilst there are no con-
crete figures for how much cybercrimes cost the world economy estimated figures 
range from $100 to $500 billion per year.

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