Combatting Cyber Terrorism - A guide to understanding the cyber threat landscape and incident

Book excerpt: Combatting Cyber Terrorism – A guide to understanding the cyber threat landscape and incident response planning In his second book with IT Governance Publishing, Richard Bingley’s Combatting Cyber Terrorism – A guide to understanding the cyber threat landscape and incident response planning analyses the evolution of cyber terrorism and what organisations can do to mitigate this threat. This book discusses: Definitions of cyber terrorism; Ideologies and idealisations that can lead to cyber terrorism; How threat actors use computer systems to diversify, complicate and increase terrorist attack impacts; The role of Big Tech and social media organisations such as X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram within the cyber threat landscape; and How organisations can prepare for acts of cyber terrorism via security planning and incident response strategies such as ISO 31000, ISO 27001 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Increasingly, cyber security practitioners are confronted with a stark phrase: cyber terrorism. For many, it conveys fear and hopelessness. What is this thing called ‘cyber terrorism’ and what can we begin to do about it? Malicious-minded ICT users, programmers and even programs (including much AI-powered software) have all been instrumental in recruiting, inspiring, training, executing and amplifying acts of terrorism. This has resulted in the loss of life and/or life-changing physical injuries that could never have occurred without support and facilitation from the cyber sphere. These types of attacks can be encapsulated by the phrase ‘cyber terrorism’. The Internet is an integral part of everyday life for the vast majority of organisations and people. Web access has become viewed as an essential human right, and a prerequisite of citizenship and societal belonging. Despite well-meaning interventions by a range of influential stakeholders (tech companies, governments, police and academia), our computer networks remain riddled with cyber threats. Accessing terrorism content does not require much in the way of research skills, technical ability or patience. This book recounts case studies to show the types of threats we face and provides a comprehensive coverage of risk management tactics and strategies to protect yourself against such nefarious threat actors. These include key mitigation and controls for information security or security and HR-related professionals.