Information Warfare Threats

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Information Warfare Threats Information warfare threats entail unauthorized access to data communications networks with mal-intent. This could be from internal or external users, internal users being employees, and external users being members of opposing organizations. Sources of threats are: foreign governments, terrorists, industrial spies, organized crime groups, hacktivists, and the different flavors of hackers. Foreign governments are capable of top level cyber warfare threats, which range from web page defacements, to shutting down critical infrastructure; possibly including the U.S. power grid, the stock market, air traffic control, and U.S. communications systems. If a system or device is connected to the internet, then it is at risk from cyber warfare. Foreign governments are the most dangerous of all the other threats because they possess the financial resources, direction, and availability of skills, in order to carry out a sophisticated attack, with the possibility of doing significant damage to the U.S. Terrorists are not known for significant cyber warfare threats at this time. They are able to carry out sporadic low threat level attacks causing minimal damage. Terrorists at this time tend to focus on utilizing explosives to kill large numbers of people, rather than disable our network infrastructure. They are however, expected to become more dangerous as newer skilled generations join their ranks. Their goals are to attack, weaken, and cause casualties within the United States. Industrial spies and organized crime groups currently pose a medium-level threat. They generally practice large scale money theft, corporate espionage, and are profit based. These organizations utilize skilled hackers to gain access to systems to steal corporate information, spread malware to disable or infiltrate other organizations, again, to disable or

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