Actual Cases of Cyber Terrorism

Because some readers may wonder whether this is just fear mongering, let’s look at some actual cases of cyber terrorism before we delve into the various aspects of it. How likely is a genuine cyber terrorist attack? Well let’s look at some real-world cases. Later in this chapter, we will examine some older, historical cases, to get a sense of perspective. However, in this section, we will only look at recent attacks.

In May 2007, government offices of Estonia were subjected to a mass denial of service attack. This attack was executed because some people opposed the government’s removal of a Russian WWII memorial. While this is a relatively minor attack, it was politically motivated and thus qualifies as cyber terrorism.