POLICY RECOMMENDATION

Cyberterrorism: Policy Recommendation



Cyberterrorism: Policy Recommendation

We live in dangerous time and it appears many areas of the world are becoming more and more unstable. The global nature of the Internet demands that the United Nations take a lead role and a proactive approach for dealing with the cyber threats that appear to be escalating at an accelerating pace. Failure for the United Nations to accelerate their efforts could further intensify friction caused by these cyber skirmishes and increase international tensions (Lourdeau, 2005).

On the other hand ince Internet banking services were introduced in 1998, new cyber financial services such as Internet banking, cyber securities and online shopping have developed remarkably in Korea. Owing to such rapid development, the percentage of total transactions that are not face-to-face transactions such as Internet banking, CD/ATM usage, telebanking and mobile banking rose sharply. The percentage among banking and securities transactions reached 82 percent and 77 percent, respectively, at the end of 2008. In keeping with the development of information communication technology, cyber transactions through the Internet and mobile mediums are expected to increase steadily in the future.

As cyber transactions increase, the cyber-terrorism threat also rises. For instance, financial services are blocked by DDoS attack, deposits are withdrawn wrongfully and individual credit information is leaked. The possibility of various cyber risks occurring in the financial sector also exists. Since financial companies' investments in the cyber security sector has reduced owing to worsened managerial conditions in the wake of last year's financial crisis, the capability to cope with a cyber-terrorism threat is expected to weaken further. This is a reality.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is exerting pressure along with financial companies to keep security and safety in the financial sector by improving financial companies' capabilities to cope with cyber-terrorism threats in the financial sector (Lourdeau, 2005).

As cyber transactions increase, the cyber-terrorism threat also rises. For instance, financial services are blocked by DDoS attack, deposits are withdrawn wrongfully and individual credit information is leaked. The possibility of various cyber risks occurring in the financial sector also exists. Since financial companies' investments in the cyber security sector has reduced owing to worsened managerial conditions in the wake of last year's financial crisis, the capability to cope with a cyber-terrorism threat is expected to weaken further. This is a reality. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is exerting pressure along with financial companies to keep security and safety in the financial sector by improving financial companies' capabilities to cope with cyber-terrorism threats in the financial sector.

Firstly, the FSS plans to guide financial companies to help them strengthen institutional and technical capabilities to prevent the outflow of customers' financial information and cope with cyber-terrorism threats such as hacking. In particular, seven domestic financial companies were major targets of the DDoS attack in July this year. The financial sector in general successfully coped with the attack because of a system to detect and intercept DDoS attacks which was built in advance owing to the FSS prior recommendation (Arquilla, ...