Next Generation of Terrorism: Ubiquitous Cyber Terrorism with the Accumulation of all Intangible Fears

Hai-Cheng Chu (Tunghai University, Taiwan, R.O.C.)

Der-Jiunn Deng (National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C.)

Han-Chieh Chao (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan, R.O.C.)

Yueh-Min Huang (National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, R.O.C.)

Abstract: It is an urgent, imminent and present danger that we have to focus on the traditional terrorists, who are transforming ICT into the modern attacking tools that can devastate the metropolitan areas with the deconstruction of critical infrastructures via the computer network using state-of-the-art hacking and cracking technologies. The cyber terrorists could inflict catastrophic loss or damage on civilians, corporations or the governments physically thousands of miles away and accomplish severe death polls than the traditional one. The government in the public sector or the private critical infrastructure administrators should not underestimate these potential cyber attacks. In this paper, we presented the cyber terrorism, the next generation of terrorism, to be a forthcoming and unavoidable threat to the global community as well as providing a potential rational cyber terrorist scenario, which could be the global cyber terrorism phenomena. This paper explicitly demonstrates the feasibility of launching cyber attacks toward critical infrastructures that might cause severe casualties.

Keywords: Internet vulnerability, critical infrastructure, cyber terrorism, hacktivism, malicious code, process control system (PCS)

Categories: J.0