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The attack was carried out against targets in a variety of industries and sectors from education
to technology, defense, chemical and aerospace, and it supposedly led to the theft of highly
sensitive material.

As the news is released, it’s easy to see how anxiety over a possible cyberwar attack builds up
and is actually fueling tensions between nations. Leaders are beginning to recognize the
potentials of a coordinated cyber-attack.

President Barack Obama, lately, indicated cyber terrorism as one of the biggest threats to
national security and called for heightened attention on cybersecurity. The president believes
that attacks similar to those already perpetrated against government agencies and banking
institution (like JPMorgan) can not only lead to massive theft of sensitive data or money, but can
also generate a dangerous state of chaos in any nation, United States included. It seems many
cybersecurity experts agree.

Recently, it has been reported by the media that a top intelligence chief has highlighted that a
major vulnerability is in the U.S. power grid. Normally attacks to utilities are not as glamorous
and interesting from a media standpoint, but they could potentially be more destructive than
data loss and privacy breaches as they would affect massive numbers of people and impair
activities in a much more pervasive way.

As unlawful attacks and threats of attacks against computers, networks and the information
stored therein continue, nations are organizing concerted efforts to create defenses and
recovery strategies by pulling efforts together. Organizatins like the European Advanced Cyber
Defence Centre (ACDC) or the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) work towards the
creation of protocols and mechanism to minimize threat while governments appoint ad-hoc
committees and task forces to review current vulnerabilities and solve them. IT/IS professionals
need to deploy advance technology to protect systems and services from the risk of security
breaches, threats and malicious attacks.
However, without proper security features built into Internet-related technology, end users will
need to become “experts” to better understand and handle cybersecurity issues at their office or
home. In essence, they must learn to fight battles in their online domains.

Terrorism-based Cyberwar

So, does cyberwar make sense for terrorists? Definitely; at least until target countries will find
foolproof, effective ways to secure their system even when connected to networks and to easily
identify, track and quickly locate the perpetrators of the attacks.

Without a way to avoid terrorism-based cyberwar attacks, then the Internet could be turned into
a weapon used against citizens by terrorists hidden in cyberspace and physically located
elsewhere.

31 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – December 2014 Edition
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