The Myth of Cyberterrorism

Problems in economy With using viruses, worm has costed to the USA $15 bil 2 Mind hackers targeted government computers Content and Organisation Read the paragraph below taken from the text â€Å"Myth of Cyberterrorism† and analyse the content and organisation. â€Å"The main reason for this controversy is that cyber-threats have not materialized as a national security threat, even granted that there have been some few incidents with at least some potential for grave consequences.Interestingly enough, both hypers and de-hypers tend to agree on this point. But while the first group assumes that vicious attacks that wreak havoc and paralyze whole nations are imminent, more cautious researchers often point to the practical difficulties of a serious cyberattack (Ingles-le Nobel, 1999), question the assumption of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities (Lewis, 2002; Smith, 1998, 2000), or point to unclear benefits of cyber- attacks for terrorist groups (Barak, 2004).Despite this c aution, however, even the second group contends that one â€Å"cannot afford to shrug off the threat† (Denning, 001 a) due to unclear and rapid tuture technological development as well as dynamic change of the capabilities of terrorism groups themselves (Technical Analysis Group, 2003). To summarize the debate in a nutshell: due to too many uncertainties concerning the scope of the threat, experts are unable to conclude whether cyber-terror is fact or fiction, or, since they are unwilling to dismiss the threat completely, how long it is likely to remain fiction.