OSNs as Cyberterrorist Weapons against the General Public

Introduction

In 1990 the National Security Council envisaged that computers could in the future be used to not only facilitate crime but as the main tool for criminal acts; ‘The modern thief can steal more with a computer than with a gun. Tomorrow's terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb’ (National Research Council, 1990). With the rise in global terrorism and the mass use of computers a new and potentially more destructive form of terrorism has come to the fore: cyberterrorism. Conventional terrorism has proved over time to be a controversial subject due to the lack of a unified global definition of what constitutes an actual terrorist act. Controversy also surrounds cyberterrorism but these centre around whether a cyberterrorist attack using digital weapons can in fact have the same profound impact as conventional terrorism using traditional kinetic weapons. This chapter looks at three different viewpoints when it comes to what is a cyberterrorist and what constitutes as a cyberterrorist attack. Current literature states that if there was a cyberterrorist attack the most likely target would be against a countries critical infrastructure (CI) or critical national infrastructure (CNI) as these systems underpin a countries society and if attacked could have nationwide effects not just on services but the population as a whole. This chapter will also look at why CI /CNI may indeed not necessarily be the main focus of an attack but will show how the public could be directly attacked using a much more focused and specific kind of digital weapon.