#TerroristFinancing: An Examination of Terrorism Financing via the Internet

2. Terrorist Financing And The Internet

As mentioned, terrorists’ use of the internet has become a major concern for security officials across the world in recent years. Like many other users, terrorists have found that the internet is an invaluable tool to share information quickly, in order to disseminate ideas and link up with like-minded individuals (Jacobson, 2010; Okolie-Osemene & Okoh, 2015). In this manner, terrorists use the internet for a variety of purposes, including recruitment, propaganda, and financing. As scholars have also noted, the internet is an attractive option for extremists due to the security and anonymity it provides (Jacobson, 2010). Yet while there have been a growing number of studies completed on the ways in which terrorist organizations use the internet to recruit and indoctrinate others, there has been relatively little focus on the methods by which terrorists finance themselves through online activities. Some researchers have attempted to fill gaps in this area by broadly studying internet aspects of terrorism financing. However, research on this particular aspect of terrorism financing still appears to be lacking, with little focus on new methods of terrorist financing via the internet or a marrying of strategies to combat online financing trends available to practitioners in the field.