Information warfare, loosely defined, is targeting the information and information systems that comprise and support civilian and military infrastructures of an adversary. Political terrorism is the systematic use of actual or threatened physical violence in the pursuit of a political objective, to create a general climate of public fear and destabilize a society, and thus influence the population or government policy. In a legal sense, information terrorism can be the intentional abuse of a digital information system, network, or component toward an end that supports or facilitates a terrorist campaign or action. In this case, the system abuse would not necessarily result in direct violence against humans, although it may still incite fear. Information terrorism is the nexus between criminal information system fraud or abuse, and the physical violence of terrorism.
Information technology offers new opportunities to terrorists.
A terrorist organization can reap low-risk, highly visible payoffs by attacking information systems. Thirty years ago terrorists could not have obtained extraordinary leverage. This is too simplistic a taxonomy for such a complex phenomenon. Hacking into a system to erase files out of sheer ego, or stealing information with the sole intent to blackmail, is nothing more than simple theft, fraud, or extortion, and certainly is not an attack upon the general legitimacy of the government. Considering the presence of computers in modern society, it is not surprising that terrorists have occasionally targeted computer systems in the past.