RAND_MR1382

Figure 8.1—WANK Worm
During the Kosovo conflict, businesses, public organizations, and academic institutes
received virus-laden emails from a range of Eastern European countries, according to
mi2g, a London-based Internet software company. “The contents of the messages are
normally highly politicised attacks on NATO’s unfair aggression and defending Serbian
rights using poor English language and propaganda cartoons,” the press release said. It
went on to say “The damage to the addressee is usually incorporated in several viruses
contained within an attachment, which may be plain language or anti-NATO
cartoon.” 118 In an earlier press release, mi2g warned that “The real threat of cyber
warfare from Serbian hackers is to the economic infrastructure of NATO countries and
not to their better prepared military command and control network.” 119
It is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, for an organization to prevent all viruses,
because users unwittingly open email attachments with viruses and spread documents
with viruses to colleagues. Although antiviral tools can detect and eradicate viruses, the
tools must be kept up-to-date across the enterprise, which may have tens of thousands of
computers, and they must be installed and used properly. While viruses bearing political
messages may not seem to pose a serious problem, an organization hit by one may have
to shut down services to eradicate it from its network.
Viruses, especially those carrying destructive payloads, are a potentially potent tool in
the hands of cyberterrorists. Other tools of hacktivism, including computer network
attacks, could likewise be put to highly destructive ends. This is the topic discussed next.
CYBERTERRORISM