- Introduction: Web Site Defacement
- The Web Site Defacement Scenario
- The Security Breach
- Corrective Actions
- Don't Be an Unwitting Collaborator
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Don't Be an Unwitting Collaborator
In a report dated October 2001 to the Congressional Internet Caucus in relation to antiterrorism legislation under consideration, the U.S. Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery (USACM) stated that "there is the problem of making too broad a definition of terrorism in a manner that casts ordinary criminal behavior as terrorism. For example, web site defacement is criminal, but is also nonviolent in nature and, although annoying, is unlikely to result in any significant physical damage, injury, or death."
In light of the terrible events that took place less than a year later and the increase in web site defacement for political ends, the terrorism as defined by the USACM is akin to putting one's head in the sand.
Terrorists want to sow seeds of doubt, confusion, and fear and disrupt the credible information flow upon which our society depends. Allowing a terrorist to change news stories or deface web sites to influence events that support their ends—such as creating false news stories to disrupt financial markets—is an important arrow in their quiver of cyber-attacks.
Don't let them use your information web site as one of their arrows.