Cyber terrorism is a cybercrime that involves the use of a computer system or the Internet to launch violent acts that may results in injury or loss of human life in order for achieving ideological or political gains through intimidation. It targets individuals and governments alike with the aim of coercing a civilian population and influencing behavior or policy of target governments.
In cyber terrorism, the cybercriminals mainly target critical infrastructures such as transportation systems, national electrical grid systems, water utility systems and related sectors to aggravate their influence and achieve their motivations. Moreover, cyber terrorism is politically motivated and premeditated cyberattack against information and information systems that results in violence and fear.
The motivations behind cyberterrorist groups are to disrupt critical national or international infrastructure, cause mass instability, inflict injury or even loss of life, and support political or religious activism or hacktivism. Besides, the cyber terrorist groups employ different techniques to achieve their goals.
The most common cyberattacks that the terrorist groups adopt include the following:
- Computer viruses, worms and other malwares targeting critical IT control systems
- Advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks
- DDoS/DoS attacks
- Criminal hacking or attempting to gain unauthorized access to computer systems
- Ransomware attacks
- Social engineering and phishing attacks
- Spamming, etc.