1 Cyber-Terrorism: Reality or Paranoia?

The new millennium – if there ever was one in any scientific meaning of the term – has been ushered amid a media circus of a Y2K scare and predictions of total world paralysis. It didn’t happen, and we were all relieved for a while, short as it was, until something far more dark and sinister in the shape of two airplanes hit the World Trade Centre. The amount of vital data and information lost in that attack has brought home a new threat to haunt those responsible for information security: cyber-terrorism. Increasingly, the world depends on computers. The systems residing on them control power delivery, communications, aviation, and financial services. They are used to store vital information, from medical records to business plans to criminal records. These computers are vulnerable- to the effects of poor design and insufficient quality control, to accident, and perhaps most alarmingly, to deliberate attack. The modern thief can steal more with a computer than with a gun. Does it follow, though, that tomorrow’s terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb? Terrorism is a much used term, with many definitions. The US Department of State defines it as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated agains