Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political gains through intimidation.Cyberspace is the set of all computer-communications networks. It is a major technology-enabled medium providing means of passage, the locus of objects of value, and parts of the control and management systems for critical processes and infrastructures.The Internet is the largest single component of cyberspace, with a presence in more than 200 countries and approximately 1 billion users. For the most part, the Internet is built upon national and international telecommunications infrastructures, including the landlines of most public phone systems and wireless, and satellite communications. Beyond the Internet, these telecommunications infrastructures are more generally highly dependent on computing technology. Thus, by our definition, they are part of cyberspace.The first characterised act of cyber terrorists, identified by intelligence authorities, was by Tamil Tigers, guerrilla terrorists in Sri Lanka 1998. Sri Lankan embassies, were sent 800 emails a day for over two weeks with a message that read “We are the Internet Black Tigers and we’re doing this to disrupt your communications”. In addition to this, the Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo, who over numerous years have various cases of cyber attacks to aid this terrorism. In 2000, an investigation discovered that the Japanese government had been using software developed by a company associated with Aum Shinrokyo (Akhgar, Staniforth, & Bosco, 2014). It’s reported that Aum had collected sensitive data regarding nuclear weapons, to which they had previously discussed purchasing with Russia in 1993 (RAND Corporation, 2005). A Pro-Palestinian hacker group titled “Nightmare” implemented a Distributed Denial of Service attack on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Tel Al Airlines and First International Bank of Israel websites. “The penetration of Israeli websites opens a new sphere of opposition and a new electronic warfare against the Israeli occupation”.

Harm principle
Establishing the harm principle helps identify the sufferers of a crime and the people being targeted to bear the consequences. Cyberterrorism does not immediately attack an individual interest. It majorly affects an interest that is owned by the general public. It can also be affirmed that cyberterrorism constitutes an attack against institution, state, or national interests to violate the constitutional order and create a greater impact with long-lasting consequences to prove and extend a political agenda.

Elements
Cyberterrorism in its entirety consists of two crucial elements, the teleological element and instrumental element. The teleological element describes cyberterrorism being committed with the objectives of altering the constitutional order or to capsize the legitimately elected government, through a major political agenda The instrumental element perpetrates that acts must be executed in a manner that instill a sense of terror in people’s minds, establishing a belief that anyone anywhere could be a victim of cyberterrorism, involving the realization of an indiscriminate attack “in” or “through” the cyberspace, with devastating consequences like deaths, serious injuries or other similar outcomes in the real world.

Weapons
The weapons of the cyberterrorists exist to destroy or modify computer data and files with the weapons and the targets being the electrons moving within cyberspace.Joseph Seanor of CIBIR Corporation gave his viewpoint on the Methods of Operations of Cyberterrorists. According to him, The critical element in cyberterrorism, and information warfare, is knowledge. He also talks about the potential weapons in cyber-terrorism that can cause the required destruction.

Cybersecurity
Cyber Security is defined under Section 2(1)(nb) of IT Act, 2000 as the protection of information, Equipment, devices, computer resources, communication devices and information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification and destruction.

Cybersecurity deals with technologies, processes, and practices that are designed to protect networks, devices, software, systems, programs, and data and sensitive information from attack, damage, or uninvited access. It is an effort to secure ICT, to protect ICTs from unauthorized access that affects the CIA triad of Confidentiality, Integrity and Accessibility. The notion of unauthorized access refers to the presence of an adversary capturing intentional threats. There is a growing need for cybersecurity because the government, military, financial, corporate, and medical organizations collect, process, and store large amounts of data which can be sensitive information, on computers and other devices. Leakage of such information might lead to negative consequences which make situations like transmission of sensitive data across networks vulnerable to exploitation. Cybersecurity aims at protecting the information from being placed in the wrong hands. The most difficult challenge and barrier in the implementation of cybersecurity is the evolving nature and uncertainty of security risks.

Cyber terrorism in India
India has begun its development and reliance on technology depicting its steady growth and shifting to a modern form of governance. Sectors like income tax, passports and visas have taken the driver seat to e-governance with police and judiciary culminating its way upward. This growth has both positive as well as negative aspects to it. With use comes greater responsibility of handling data online with care as any damage can have catastrophic consequences and India cannot afford to collapse. The episodes of online warfare and cyber-attacks are high against India. Time and again we have been attacked in full force by China and Pakistan.

China, who on one hand is strengthening its ability to wage electronic warfare, on the other hand, Pakistan has increased cyber attacks on India and its crucial websites in retaliation to the Jammu and Kashmir issue, thus extending their warfare to completely new, unpredictable and dangerous zones like cyberspace. Hacker groups have intensified their raging attacks on India and we need a strong and structured system to fight the digital war. The acts of cybercrimes and terrorism have multiplied in lots and bounds, the Parliament of the Republic of India has not yet enacted any legislation that specifically addresses the problem of cyber coercion. However, there are some existing legislation and some amendments to incorporate it at intervals to deal with the issues.

The Indian system
India has always taken a tough stance and fought against acts of terrorism. It does not come as a shocker that India, in the context of cyberterrorism, has formulated stringent laws and policies to overcome the uncertain yet grave danger to the society and important infrastructure. Our nation has equipped its Information and Technology Act,2000 with stringent laws. The original IT Act was drafted by T. Vishwanathan, but the idea of cyber terrorism wasn’t included in the parental legislation. In the year 2008 after witnessing the incidents of international and national incidents of cyberterrorism, there was a realized need for strong and stringent provision as well as punishment of cyber terrorism.

Digital devices and information are now integrated with today’s society, from computers being used to performing everyday tasks, mobile phones used extensively by people of all ages to sending and receiving calls and messages. The increase in the use of these devices not only supports an individual’s productivity but is now being used to perpetrate crimes and criminal activity.

Two concepts are often embodied in academic definitions of any form of terrorism: violence and terror. The growing fear of cyberterrorism involves prevention and repression of the perpetration of a series of complex challenges in a global and technologically interconnected world. Cyberterrorism constitutes a major threat which requires urgent precautions to be taken, especially if it is considered that it can operate as a complement or suitable support for traditional terrorism. The combining of traditional and cyberterrorism can increase the already existing intensity of the fear and impact of terrorism. Terrorists have kept pace with the advancing technology and change in the methods used, thus leaving no gap between their intentions and their tactics. They consistently are finding ways to strive for the impacts they dream of to exploit society through evolution. There are quite many implications of information age terrorism.

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