Thank you Adrian!
Latin America could be vulnerable to cyberterrorism
A group called "Anonymous" claimed responsibility for the attack on the official website of the Government of Chile on May 17.On its website, the group claimed it executed cyber sabotage in protest at the approval of HidroAysén, a hydroelectric project in Patagonia, on the southern tip of the country.
The operation dubbed "Southern Storm" by "Anonymous" managed to collapse the government site, which remained down for about an hour.
The group had already carried out a similar attack, a week earlier, against the project's website (www.hidroaysen.cl) and also against the official website of Colbún, a business consortium associated with the project.
The "Anonymous" attacks are the latest example of cyberterrorism against public or private computer systems throughout Latin America. They have also led to questions about whether countries in the region are sufficiently protected against cyberterrorism.
"In Latin America there is still some misunderstanding regarding the security with which information and computer resources should be treated," says Cristian Borghello, director of Segu-Info, an Argentine computer security consultancy. "Both private companies and state agencies have a lot of work to do to reach international standards in cybersecurity"
According to Borghello, in many cases the sensitive information of citizens is not protected with adequate security measures.
"This allows criminals from all corners of the world to benefit, accessing without authorization," he says. "Modifying them and even jeopardizing the personal data that could be stored there."
Authorities attending the 12th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, held in April 2010 in Brazil, concluded that the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes covers both attacks on critical infrastructure through the internet (cyberterrorism) and cases where the internet is used to commit terrorist attacks.
The authorities also recognized that there is no comprehensive legal instrument punishing such activities, so the commitment of the participating countries was to develop possible solutions and legal mechanisms based on existing regional instruments, such as the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.
On the same day as the attack on the Chilean government's website, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the U.S. International Strategy for Cyberspace. Clinton said this strategy is aimed at promoting an "open, interoperable, secure and reliable information and communications infrastructure."
Cristian from the Segu-Info Newsroom
