The Pros And Cons Of Cyber Terrorism

The Internet has become a daily ritual for Americans. So many people rely on technology and computers to do their shopping, banking, and communications. Where most of this used to be done in face-to-face communications, the ability to do it online has become increasingly popular because of the ease of use, but it is also putting fear in people as to whether their personal information is protected or not, and if our information is protected what does that exactly mean and who has access to it and how? This paper will examine cyber terrorism and information warfare, what has happened in past years and what needs to be done to not only protect our country, but us as citizens.
According to Cassim, “Cyber Terrorism is defined as a premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in the furtherance of such objectives” (p384). Cyber space is considered the best place for criminals and their peers to gather and discuss their next move (Cassim2012). With technology on the rise, the web has become the prime place for fights to break out, but not all cyber threats are necessarily terrorism
It’s been easy to believe the concept that if we make the punishment more relentless, terrorism will end all together. The most important factor in putting a stop to terrorism is being able to identify the terrorists and track their movement. Tracking their movement is much harder to do, considering the issues we run into legally and technically. The Department of Homeland Security and NSA need to reach out to the cyber terrorist community. According to Hua and Bapna (2012), “Cyber terrorist will be warned that this is not a catch me if you can game but a, we can catch if you do game”