The Problem With Calling Cyber Attacks ‘Terrorism’

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/01/problem-calling-cyber-attacks-terrorism/102309/

By Micah Zenko
Council on Foreign Relations
January 6, 2015

Yesterday, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking member of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee, appeared on CNN’sState of the Union where he 
proposed placing North Korea on the State Department’s State Sponsors of 
Terrorism list. Menendez contended that the additional sanctions announced 
by the White House last week were insufficient, and that “we need to look 
at putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, 
which would have far more pervasive consequences.” Beyond claiming this 
would have additional consequences for North Korea, he disagreed with 
President Obama’s characterization of the alleged Sony hack as “an act of 
cyber vandalism”:

“Vandalism is when you break a window. Terrorism is when you destroy a 
building. And what happened here is that North Korea landed a virtual bomb 
on Sony’s parking lot, and ultimately had real consequences to it as a 
company and to many individuals who work there.”

I recently wrote a piece that questioned the wisdom of placing North Korea 
on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, given that—according to the State 
Department—the “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not 
known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean 
Airlines flight in 1987.” There is no question that North Korean agents 
engage in any number of malicious and even violent actions in South Korea 
and beyond, which might be labeled by some as acts of “terrorism.” 
However, the U.S. Secretary of State, who is empowered under the 1979 
legislation to determine which countries should be included on the list, 
concluded that North Korea should not be on the list, and, in fact, the 
Bush administration removed the country in 2008. Moreover, just as 
removing North Korea from the list did not open up the country to U.S. 
exports given the multitude of overlapping sanctions and restrictions, 
placing them back on it will not have any demonstrable impact.

[...]

--
Evident.io - Continuous Cloud Security for AWS.
Identify and mitigate risks in 5 minutes or less.
Sign up for a free trial @ https://evident.io/