Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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CHAPTER 2
Definitions of Cyber Terrorism
• a serious economic loss,
• a serious breach of ecological safety,
• a serious breach of the social and political stability and cohesion of a nation.
HAS CYBER TERRORISM EVER OCCURRED?
Using the final definition above, there is only a limited set of actions after the mid-
eighties which may have neared a real cyber terror act. A first one was during the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict around 1999. Following unconfirmed reports, hackers 
modified blood types in patient records in a hospital database causing the risk of 
people dying through receiving the wrong blood transfusion. A second one may be 
the 2006–2007 preparations by an Al Qa’ida-related terrorist group which planned 
to physically target the Telehouse telecommunications centre and internet exchange 
in the London Docklands area. In August 2006, the potential societal effect of such 
an attack was demonstrated by a small power disruption at Telehouse. This techni-
cal disruption took down tens of thousands websites and hundred thousand custom-
ers of Plusnet internet services for a number of hours (
Wearden, 2006
). The societal 
effects of a possible long-duration disruption which could have been the result of a 
successful physical attack can only be guessed but probably would have been minor 
given the redundancy of systems, networks, backed up information, and services.
All other cyber disruptions that took place were labeled as cyber-terror acts by the 
news media, were (although for the public and organizations sometimes disturbing 
and annoying) ICT-disruptions caused by acts of cybercrime or hacktivism, or turned 
out to be technical in nature.
CONCLUSIONS
This chapter discussed the elements which are required to classify an event as a 
cyber-terroristic act and derives a definition of cyber terror.
Despite the many media headlines, it is asserted that based on the definition 
shaped above, that no clear act of cyber terrorism has occurred yet. We need to be 
prepared, however, for acts of cyber terror as the increasing societal critical reliance 
on ICT will make ICT systems and services as well as embedded ICT an interesting 
target for future terrorists.
REFERENCES
Bosch, J.M.J., Luiijf, H.A.M., Mollema, A.R., 1999. Information Operations. Netherlands 
Annual Review of Military Studies (NL ARMS). Tilburg University Press, Tilburg, The 
Netherlands.
Bowden, M., 1999. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. Atlantic Monthly Press, 
Berkeley, CA, USA.

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