There doesn’t seem to be a day that goes by without some news of a cyber-attack making the headlines, some of them being aimed at specific organizations and other simply being a malware virus for no other purpose than to create havoc. Cyber terrorism falls into a whole other category because it is aimed at large groups and is intent on causing harm in the physical world, typically based on an ideology. With so much tension between various nations around the world, cyber terrorism does pose a very real threat to national security and therefore has become one of the main focal points within so many online masters in computer science programs at major institutions of higher learning.
Who coined the term “cyber terrorism”?
While most people didn’t really understand the threat of a cyber-terroristic attack until the late 1990s when the world began to anticipate attacks on computers around the globe as the new millennium was set to be ushered in, the term has really been around since the latter part of the 1980s. History has it that Barry C. Collin came up with the term while working for the Institute for Security and Intelligence.
A bit of history worth mentioning
Techies of the time were concerned with time coming to a virtual standstill and how terrorists would use millennium bugs to cause terrorist attacks at enemy nations, but it wouldn’t be until much later that cyber terrorism became a major focus for masters in computer science online security teams. The general public began to really worry in the days and years after 9/11 when it became obvious that enemy nations meant to do our country major harm and would stop at nothing to bring us to our virtual knees. Since then, all major schools offer highly focused online computer science masters degrees that prepare students for jobs in security and defense.
Can cyber terrorism really harm the United States?
If a terrorist cyber-attack makes it through all the layers and layers of defense built by government and private security experts, yes, a single cyber terrorist attack can do unimaginable damage to our country in a number of ways. One cyber-attack can spread like wildfire bringing our national energy grid offline and can even wipe out our intelligence infrastructure by wiping data banks clean. Bear in mind that the ultimate purpose of cyber terrorism is to do harm to a nation or a people because of warring ideologies. Most often the West fears cyber terrorism originating in places such as the radical Muslims of the Middle East or Saudi Arabia, as well as from other not-so-friendly nations such as Russia, China or North Korea.
So is the threat as great as it sounds?
So, is cyber terrorism a real threat to national security? The answer to that would need to be, indeed it is! Before 9/11 no one would have ever imagined that terrorists could have commandeered jets in US airspace to successfully carry out the attack of that tragic day, but they did and they can and if allowed, they will.
Yes, cyber terrorism is a very real threat, and a big one at that. If you have an interest in computer science and a passion for keeping your country free from terrorist threats, you just might want to get an online masters computer science degree with a major emphasis in Internet security. The nation, indeed the entire world, needs better cyber security so join the ranks and your future is almost guaranteed. This is one career that will always be in high demand.
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