Internet Terrorism - Definition, Methods & Cases

If you thought the only form of terrorism is the one daily shown on our television sets where they show blood, you lot are wrong. There is much more to terrorism used by militant and terrorist outfits besides as people into the business organization of destruction and obstruction. Also known as digital terror, Cyberspace terrorism comprises of methods that can atomic number 82 to serious loss of data, crashing of networks and websites, and in rare cases – heating systems to an extent where they blow off as if some bomb exploded.

What is Internet Terrorism

Broadly put, the term Net Terrorism or Cyber Terrorism relates to any activeness performed using the Internet with the intent to destroy something valuable or to disable any service for a limited or indefinite menses of fourth dimension.

There are two faces to this. 1 is actively used by Net hackers and malicious users of the Internet. The other ane is non much visible but is used past regular terror elements. Nosotros cannot say which one is more unsafe but in most cases, the latter often leads to loss of lives in some way or the other.

How Terrorist Utilise Internet For Terrorism

The early on known case of Internet Terrorism was the usage of cryptography for the manual of messages past some terrorist groups.  Their language symbols look like pieces of art and they used them actively for the manual of letters coded equally images. It was shocking when one of my Standard arabic friends dorsum there in N India gave me a CD containing some of the Heart East language symbols. He even showed me how to put up symbols artistically to produce an impression that a particular file is just a digital image.

I do not know if they still employ such tactics every bit I never heard of such things for past few years. But sure, they are using the Internet to provoke people and bring in discontent. Such instruments or resource exist on the Cyberspace and I do not know why the authorities are not taking them down. Of form, the Internet is just one of the many mediums to spread terror! If interested in how terrorists apply the Internet for terrorism, please read this piece on Wikipedia (Especially, check citation #xiii).

Internet Explosives – Email Bombs; Logic Bombs; and Null Bombs

Leaving the second aspect of Internet Terror to the authorities, let us talk more than almost the first aspect – the one beingness used by malicious users to target websites, company databases whether on personal servers or on the cloud, e-mail systems, and sometimes an entire network – or rather, the Intranet of different organizations.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is one of the most common methods that are practiced using ane or more of the post-obit techniques. This list is not comprehensive; it contains only the elements that I know and found important enough to allow you know about it. In fact, you might already know some or all of these:

1. Email Bombs – Used to bring down websites and electronic mail servers
2. Logic Bombs – Used to trigger off actions that tin lead to damaging databases; wiping off hard disks, etc – In other words, this method is mostly used to destroy data completely or partially to arrive irrecoverable
3. Nix Bombs – A zip bomb or the Zip of Death is a malicious archive file designed to crash or return useless the system reading it. It is often employed to disable antivirus software to create an opening for more traditional viruses. One of its kind, the method is very interesting and can be implemented for both DDoS and rendering computers/servers and entire networks unusable. Depending upon the design of the Zilch bombs, the whole Intranets of organizations can exist brought down causing temporary or permanent harm.

What are Logic Bombs

You may recollect i Pipeline blast. It is said that a Logic Bomb triggered off certain serial of events that led to overheating that resulted in a historic, not-nuclear blast.

A logic flop, equally evident by its proper name, is based on a condition being met. You must accept programmed using the IF-Then-ELSE parameters as a child. A logic flop is the same – except that, the person using the software does not know that something "UNEXPECTED" will happen in example a sure status is met. A known example of logic bombs was the deletion of the employee database when an employee was fired (that is, when the record containing his information was deleted). I cannot call back the exact instance (Name of visitor, employee, etc.) but am certain you tin find more data about information technology on the Cyberspace.

What are Email Bombs

Email bombs are easier to brand and every bit such, are easier to identify as well. In virtually cases, an individual or an organization'due south email accost is at the receiving terminate. The primary aim, in this example, is to transport then many emails to an address that the email server crashes. In some cases, if the same server is being used to host email and websites/databases, the damage would be more than only email IDs crashing. Probably, that is why there is a limit on how many emails you tin can send to anyone using any of the email services – public or private. Yous tin can employ electronic mail marketing companies but they as well, take care of distributing of your electronic mail listing in a way that nothing is afflicted in a negative mode.

What is a ZIP Flop

Among the well-nigh unsuspecting Net bombs are the ZIP bombs. They are actually a Zip file containing a very huge file that is encrypted in v or more rotations. If you lot zip the actual file in one case and then create a Zip of the Nada file – information technology is one rotation. Usually, v rotations are enough to shrink a text file containing any single letter – such as "A" – billions and billions of times, to a very small size, that looks totally innocent. There is no way a human can create such a text file. It would be created using a special programme and such programs are like shooting fish in a barrel to create. For example, y'all tin can create a loop in C language and keep on writing the letter of the alphabet "A" until the file reaches the desired size.

The core is often a text file because such files are easiest to compress to 1/K+ times of their original size. For example, compression of some 4.5 petabytes (each letter beingness a byte) can lead to a ZIP file just 42 kb – for transmission over the Cyberspace. This example is known as the 42.cipher bomb. Fifty-fifty if you employed (discover the past tense and come across side by side paragraph) a adept anti-malware, it would become engaged in an infinite loop for scanning the contents of such ZIP bomb. And if you determine to extract them as such (giving up on scanning), where would your hd get the space required to store the contents of the multi-compressed file? This results in a hard deejay crash and somewhen, into organisation or server crash.

Information technology is not that our most loved anti-malware companies are not enlightened of such bombs – actually digital files – with the potential to bring down and destroy any digital (and sometimes physical) assets of whatever private or visitor – private or federal. While learning nigh the ZIP bombs created a kind of scare in my mind, it is soothing to know that virtually of the reputed anti-malware software are capable of identifying such bombs and finish them earlier they "explode"!

One method I found that these anti-malware use to place and stop Cyberspace Explosives is as follows:

Only few layers of recursion are performed on archives to aid foreclose attacks that would crusade a buffer overflow, an out of memory status, or exceed an acceptable amount of plan execution fourth dimension.

While the above would apply by and large to ZIP bombs, for E-mail bombs, the anti-spam filters these days are more plenty. Nevertheless, you need to take precautions as usual – not giving out your email ID at public places. If you receive whatsoever message asking for confirmation on whether you subscribed to some service or mailing list, and you cannot recollect subscribing, deny it. And if yous are using your own servers for email, continue them separate and well equipped with the latest anti-spam filters!

Amongst the iii types of Cyberspace Explosives or Digital Bombs explained hither, Logic bombs are the most difficult ones with the potential to… you know what happened to the Trans-Siberian Pipeline!

Further Reading: Paper On Internet Terrorism from etsu.edu. Image Credits:Euro Police Organization, World News Network, IBM Global Security, NY.

Source: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/internet-terrorism-definition-methods-examples-2

Posted by: owenwonscalun.blogspot.com

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