A short remark...

Greetings to everyone, I have a short remark here.

As usual, I only write when I've something to share. Therefore, I rarely update this site.

Meanwhile, I would suggest you to subscribe for updates by typing in your e-mail address in the text box provided at the side bar so that you will receive the updates once I'm back. Don't worry, no spamming. :)

Just chill while waiting for some interesting topics or issues.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Cyber Terrorism (CT) and Cyber Crime (CC)

This short article that I wrote will be focusing on how serious CT and CC can be. It is slightly target for large companies because I know that one day you one of the top guns in a company.

I'm not introducing something new to the world right now. It is the same thing of what those old-time techies keep on mentioning about, cyber terrorism and cyber crime will be raising due to the importance that we give to the information technology in this modern era. As usual, people like to sabotage your most important asset. For instance in a war, the first thing that military will do is attack the most important place such as the military camp in order to cause greater suffocation to the victim.

My definition of cyber terrorism is, exactly same as terrorism but it is done in the cyber world also can be said a cyber war. The same goes to cyber crime as well, it all comes under crime using the modern day communication tools specifically computers. By the way, cyber terrorism is more dangerous compared to cyber crime where cyber terrorism includes larger amount of people.

Therefore, it is not impossible for someone to cause a serious damage in the IT world. Once cyber terrorism happens, it can cause serious communication failure that might lead to the malfunction of the whole organization. Cyber terrorism and cyber crime can happen anywhere. For example, in business environment, people could steal all your financial information thus create a network failure by attacking your company servers. Obviously, your network administrators might have done backups, but it will still take some time for your network to recover because your network administrator and computer emergency response team (CERT) need to do some analysis to know how it happened. In this gap, your company's e-mail will be down causing a communication barrier between you and your customers (applied for large operations).

What about SOHO and SME/SMI users? Well, you are still vulnerable for CT/CC attacks. Hackers can use your bandwidth and information to go anonymous in the Internet. Once they go anonymous, then, they can do anything because no one knows their identification.

Other worst-case scenarios (WCS): These are only few funny examples.

1. Setting up malicious codes in the computers at Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara causing it to automatically edit individuals’ information such as religion and gender silently. After some time, the religion and gender of the entire Malaysians will be different E.g. All Malaysians are Christian and the gender is female. This will cause serious havoc. (CT)

2. Steal health information for business purposes. For instance, the companies hire hackers to steal people’s health information from hospitals and clinics to make a decision whether the candidate can be employed or not. (Business CC)

3. Attack the TM Net Streamyx connection centers (those high-end switches) to disable internet connections for all the streamyx subscribers. This also can cause a massive lost for businesses and organizations. (CT)

Note: I’m not giving you ideas conduct CT or CC okay?

Obviously, the network administrators can detect these kinds of things but hackers still can find ways. I personally feel that these things are possible.

The problem is, as days pass by, we are giving more importance to information technology. Nowadays, everywhere we go there must be a computer for instance schools, clinics and logistics. All these are the goldmines for the hackers out there. Companies are investing large amount of money in it. However, I’m not denying the fact that computers are efficient and essential for corporations but at the same time it is vital to play safe. So, it is good to invest on security as well. For example, the usage of VoIP can be easily captured almost by anyone. Yet, most of the companies are using VoIP because it’s getting more reliable.

No matter who you are, you still have to find a solution for this problem because you are exposed as well. I repeat, a kid who knows how to use Google might cause million dollars loss to your company one day.

Remember:
“There is nothing impossible in the cyberworld anymore!”
(Mohamed Ihsan, 2006)

No comments: