Cybercrime is directed against individuals or terrorist cyber-attacks on national institutions.
From a general point of view, both cybercrime and cyberterrorism are significant to the community, nation, and the overall country, but if studied in detail, there are some facts by which it can be assumed that their caused damage is different concerning one another. Cybercrime is only a way to benefit a single individual, and it is not necessary that the other one is disturbed mentally or his flow of activities is disturbed (Prasad, 2017). Cyber-terrorism is the way to destroy or disrupt another individual, state, or nation. It includes some different ways and some real-life examples (Stohl, 2006). According to my perspective, terrorist cyber-attacks could be considered as a significant threat or a cause of a threat to a nation and its institutes. The main aim of the paper is to defend the point that cyberterrorism or terrorist cyber-attacks are more fatal than that of cyber-crime.
Cybercrime can only be used to get valuable information from someone’s database. They can get some benefits, which include bank robbery, money transactions, and email checking. It will only cause the leakage of the information or damage to the other party. The main aim of the hacker while doing a cybercrime is only financial gain, revenge, ideology, or just plain mischief-making. The cyber-terrorism is a little extreme and could be considered as a threat (Jarvis, Macdonald & Whiting, 2017). Cyber-terrorists use digital devices and the internet to create violence as well as loss by breaking the security of different government and non-government institutes. They are more harmful than the cybercriminals.
“A cyber-attack alone is not capable of causing terror in the same way that a car bomb does.”
(This quote is a phrase collected from the online copy of the paper by Nisbet from Cybercrime and cyber terrorism)
Comparatively, both do the same job, but the purpose defines how much damage they could cause. Cybercrimes are done silently and are just used for personal benefit, which means that they only require what they want and leave the room with the secret door, and the secret ways are kept hidden. In contrast, cyberterrorism is done aggressively. They hack critical state institutions and bank sites and remove, destroy, or encrypt the data available to serve the public in the database. Some of the terrorists also placed their logos on the home screens with some violent quotes, which are a cause of creating terror in the community. The state is directly targeted because the violence and terrorism created by them stop or disturb regular activities. Data can be retrieved most of the time through backups and warehouse storage, but the time utilized to win back confidence cannot be forgotten (Nisbet, 2004).
In a nutshell, it can be concluded that cybercrime is a harmful activity for society but not as much as comparatively the cyber-terrorist. A large number of lives are already gone, and millions of dollars of data on the government scale are lost due to these activities. I have a personal opinion that if there are two cases in which a minor cyber-terrorist attack is observed, and a severe cybercrime is also found, the cyber-terrorist attack should be tracked first.
References
Jarvis, L., Macdonald, S., & Whiting, A. (2017). Unpacking cyberterrorism discourse: Specificity, status, and scale in news media constructions of threat. European Journal of International Security, 2(1), 64-87, Retrieved on March 2, 2018. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/unpacking-cyberterrorism-discourse-specificity-status-and-scale-in-news-media-constructions-of-threat/B68F6B8FD15E2200A5B1C159FA480210
Nisbet, C. (2004). Cybercrime and cyberterrorism. In Securing Electronic Business Processes (pp. 31-37). Vieweg+ Teubner Verlag, Retrieved on March 2, 2018. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-322-84982-3_3
Prasad, P. (2017). A Brief Introduction to Cyber Crime Cases under Information Technology Act: Details & Analysis, Retrieved on March 2, 2018. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3153589
Stohl, M. (2006). Cyberterrorism: a clear and present danger, the sum of all fears, breaking point or patriot games?. Crime, law and social change, 46(4-5), 223-238, Retrieved on March 2, 2018. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-007-9061-9
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