With the invention of the Internet, all new possibilities opened up for terrorists. The Internet allows terrorists to be in remote locations, far away from the person they are trying to terrorize, and still hack successfully into that person’s life. In the past, if you wanted to terrorize a person, you had to do so through physical contact, but the Internet has taken away that personal factor. Because cyberterrorism has a non-physical factor, terrorism becomes a silent threat, able to strike anyone and anything—no matter how well guarded they are. Even though there is new software for preventing computer terrorism being created every day, the terrorist hackers are coming up with new ways to penetrate computer systems quicker than the preventative software can be produced.

Cyberterrorists have found ways to hack into computers, to send viruses from one computer to the next, and to just terrorize others. An example of this is identity theft, which can be done through the Internet with a credit card number or social security number. Because using the Internet to buy merchandise, among other things, is done without physical appearance or an identity check, it is easy for hackers to drain a person’s account and change that person’s finances dramatically. The person being violated is typically unaware until it is too late, and as new technology is invented, terrorists just continue to find new ways to terrorize.

One major thing that terrorists have been using cyberspace for is to disrupt military activities. By using computers, a terrorist can get into our national defense’s computer system and make up things to make us believe certain things that will eventually harm us. As we have seen recently, computer technology is becoming a bigger factor in fighting wars. There no longer is as much of a need for actual soldiers on the ground because of technology, which is both good and bad in senses.

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