Cyberterrorism, Cyber terrorists and their methods to launch an attack Research Paper

Cyberterrorism, Cyber terrorists and their methods to launch an attack - Research Paper Example Or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives (Verton, 2003). With ever changing technology, there are ways upon ways to hack or use the internet in a criminal manner such as cyber espionage or information warfare. Cyber terrorism is a combination of cyberspace and terrorism. Often this type of warfare is used to persuade a group or government to follow certain political beliefs. Cyber terrorism can be used to help plan other terrorist activities, soften a target prior to a physical attack and generate more fear and confusion concurrent with other terrorist acts. Cyber terrorism has no boundaries as it is not limited by physical space and can be carried out by anyone and anywhere in the world. This paper aims to provide an explanation of what cyber terrorism is and how it is propagated in information technology world and the impacts it has on the businesses and organisation s that use the internet and networking to carry out their activities. It is important that we i dentify and protect the critical infrastructures which include government operations, gas/oil storage and delivery, water supply systems, banking and finance, transportation, electrical energy, telecommunications and emergency. According to the former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 The nation is vulnerable to new forms of terrorism ranging from cyber-attacks to attacks on military bases abroad to ballistic missile attacks on U.S. cities. Wars in the 21st century will increasingly require all elements of national power – not just the military. They will require that economic, diplomatic, financial, law enforcement and intelligence capabilities work together. Cyber terrorist use different methods to launch a cyber-terror attack. One method is hacking, which is the unauthorized access to a computer or network. An alternative technique is the Trojan horse program designed to pretend to do one thing while actually doing another, with the purpose of damaging the compu ter’s software or system operations. Computer viruses can be spread extremely fast and cause major damage. Computer worms are self-contained programs that are able to spread functional copies of itself or its segments to other computer systems. Then there’s email relates crimes that involve e-mail spoofing, spreading Trojans, viruses and worms. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks that can be accomplished by using a single computer or millions of computers throughout the world. To perpetrate such an activity, the ‘attacker’ installs a Trojan in many computers, gain control over them, and then send a lot of requests to the target computer. And last, but not least, cryptography literally meaning covered writing, involves the hiding of data in another object; it can also be used to hide messages within image and audio file. Although there is no definite way of stopping cyber terrorism there are several measures to prevent such acts. For example, using an up-to-dat e computer security software systems and firewalls, personal vigilance. security levels in private sector critical infrastructure fields. Using a high level virus-scanning program like Kaspersky or Norton devices will be safe from majority of the little viruses that you may come in contact with. In order to understand the cyber terrorism four major elements have to be considered and examined these elements are the perpetrator of the crime , the place where the crime takes place, the tools that are used to aid the perpetration of the crime, the action what actions take

Understand the sources of finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Understand the sources of finance - Essay Example Sources of Finance Name University Body An outline of the various (at least 8) sources of finance that participants may choose from. (AC 1.1 Identification the sources of finance available to a business) Trade credit refers to the purchase of goods and services on the basis of credit; this means that the business can purchase the raw materials from its suppliers on credit basis. Business can even ask for a loan from a particular bank if it wants to finance its operations. The business can even save money by obtaining discounts on purchase of raw material by paying money in cash; various suppliers provide discounts to those businesses that pay their invoices in cash. Bank overdraft refers to the allowance of obtaining higher amount of finance than the depositor has deposited in his/her bank account. Business tend to share its profits among shareholders as dividends after a particular period of time, businesses can use this profit for operational and expansion purposes instead of distributing as dividends. Business can decrease the amount of inventory they hold, this will help them use the money for other purposes and money will not remain tied up in inventory for a longer period of time. Business can delay the payments it has to make to its creditors and suppliers and they can even sell portions of the company to the public and obtain finance for their operations. The legal, dilution of control and bankruptcy implications of the various sources of finance identified (AC 1.2 Assessment the implications of the different sources) There are several advantages and disadvantages associated with the financing sources obtained through external financing sources. The advantages of external financing sources stated in this report are that these finances can be obtained at a very fast pace, the cost of obtaining these finances is quite lower and the amount of interest paid for these sources are even at a very lower end. These sources of finance are quite flexible, the repayment method of these sources of fi nance is even quite easy and terms of financing are simple. These sources of finances are although used for financing short term financial requirements, but they can be obtained for the longer run. For example: the time period of repayment to creditors can be extended. There are even disadvantages associated with the stated external sources of finance, the business has to bare the burden of paying interest even of the business ends up making a loss and has to repay the loan amount (NEEDHAM, 1995, p.99). Another problem with this source of finance is that, in order to obtain a bank loan an organization has to give something to bank as collateral. If the organization fails to repay the loan, the bank sells the collateral in order to retain the amount they have given to the organization as loan. During the periods of recession and economic downtrend, businesses face decline in profits and even experience loss due to which they face issues in obtaining bank loans and suppliers do not tr ust them and do not offered goods and services in credit form to the organization. An analysis of the financial implications (e.g. tangible and opportunity costs), and tax effects of using the various sources of finance that you outlined in AC1.1 and AC1.2 above (AC 2.1 Analyse the costs of different sources of finance) There are severa