The Impacts of Cyberterrorism

This article discusses the impacts of cyberterrorism on individuals, businesses, governments, and international relationships. It explains how cyberterrorist attacks are designed to physically harm individuals or groups and cause disruptions to critical infrastructure systems. The article also highlights the economic and psychological effects of cyberterrorism.

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THE IMPACTS OF CYBERTERRORISM
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As defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in United States, cyberterrorism is a
premeditated and a motivated attack against computer systems, information systems and
computer programs which leads to violence against the non-combatant targets by certain groups
and clandestine agents (Hardy and Williams 2014, p.22). However, unlike the viruses whose
main impacts are denial of service and corruption of data stored in organization information
systems, cyberterrorist attacks are designed explicitly to physically harm individuals, group of
individuals or the state at large. According to the Critical Infrastructure and Protection
Commission, some of the main cyberterrorist attacks target banking industries, military
installations, air traffic centers and power plants.
An example of a cyberterrorism attack is an attack targeting the critical country
infrastructure systems like disabling water treatment plants, causing regional power outages, or
disrupting pipelines, oil refinery or fracking operations (Kenney 2015, p.126). This kind of an
attack leads to disruptions on major cities, causing public health crisis, endangering public safety
of many people as well as causing massive panic and fatalities among the citizens.
At the individual level, cyber terrorism attacks are stressful because of various reasons;
first of all, if directed on individual businesses, the may definitely cause health problems to the
affected category of people like high blood pressure as they try to accommodate the losses
resulting from such attacks (Wei, Hui and Yuefeng 2017.). This is because of the significant
panic and anxiety which are both equally capable of cracking down the foundations of individual
wellbeing and human security.
At the United States government level, cyberterrorism attacks drag the economy growth
of the country as a result of diversion of resources which could otherwise be used to build the

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country’s economy to fight against these attacks. At the international community level,
cyberterrorism destroys the relationships between different countries. This is especially the case
if the attacks were from another country (Gross, Canetti and Vashdi 2017, p.50).
References
Kenney, M., 2015. Cyber-terrorism in a post-stuxnet world. Orbis, 59(1), pp.111-128.
Hardy, K. and Williams, G., 2014. What is ‘cyberterrorism’? Computer and internet technology
in legal definitions of terrorism. In Cyberterrorism (pp. 1-23). Springer, New York, NY.
Gross, M.L., Canetti, D. and Vashdi, D.R., 2017. Cyberterrorism: its effects on psychological
well-being, public confidence and political attitudes. Journal of Cybersecurity, 3(1),
pp.49-58.
Wei, H., Hui, Y. and Yuefeng, L., 2017. Impact Factors Research of Cyber-Terrorism Activities
Based on Netizen Behaviors.