What is the New Normal for Cyber Terrorism? Is This Acceptable?

With recent news stories involving serious attacks on Sony and its PlayStation Network, Microsoft’s Xbox Live network, alongside other high profile attacks on the Tor project and North Korea’s Websites, has cyber-terrorism become a very real and dangerous reality for enterprises to battle alongside other threats? Let’s start from the beginning.

What is the difference between cyber-terrorism, vandalism, or even war? Looking back to the 90s and early 2000s, websites were commonly defaced just to satisfy an attacker’s ego. Just like graffiti, this is a great example of vandalism. A more recent example of this sort of attack was the recent defacement of the Twitter home page – a textbook example of vandalism. If you consider malware like Stuxnet  discovered in June 2010 and nicknamed the “world’s first digital weapon” things change drastically. Stuxnet had moved beyond the virtual world and was capable of causing physical destruction to computer equipment and possible large-scale destruction – or cyber-war. However, cyber-terrorism seems to have found a different niche where the destruction or disruption of service isn’t a military or state target, but that of a commercial entity or service – the businesses, services, or information that you and I often times depend upon. In the case of the Sony attack, which saw the release of confidential data of employees and their families in November 2014, there are many potential suspects. Sony’s potential and current customers are likely to question purchasing Sony products, which could have a devastating long-term impact on the company. Share your comments with us here at the Cloud and Cyber Security Center.