Question

threats associated with means of communication

Answer 1

Most of the nation’s civil communications and data network infrastructure is not hardened against attack, but this infrastructure tends to be localized either in geography or in mode of communication. Thus, if no physical damage is done to them, the computing and communications capabilities disrupted in an attack are likely to be recoverable in a relatively short time. Although their scope or scale is limited, they are nonetheless potentially attractive targets for what might be called “incremental” terrorism. That is, terrorists could use IT as the weapon in a series of relatively local attacks that are repeated against different targets—such as banks, hospitals, or local government services—so often that public confidence is shaken and significant economic disruption results.

However, this report focuses primarily on catastrophic terrorism, and the committee’s analysis is aimed at identifying threats of that magnitude in particular and at proposing science and technology (S&T) strategies for combating them. Of course, serious efforts are needed to develop and deploy security technologies to harden all elements of the IT infrastructure to reduce the potential for damage from repeated attacks.

2.1

ATTACK ON IT AS AN AMPLIFIER OF A PHYSICAL ATTACK

Given IT’s critical role in many other elements of the national infrastructure and in responding to crises, the committee believes that the targeting of IT as part of a multipronged attack scenario could have the most catastrophic consequences. Compromised IT can have several disastrous effects: expansion of terrorists’ opportunities to widen the damage

please mark as BRAINLIEST please