Most risks can be managed. It is the unmanageable risks that we fear. This paper will address what the risks and possibilities are of combining terrorism and computers. Before we can discuss the possibilities of cyberterrorism, we must have some working definitions. Another word for cyberspace is the virtual world .
Terrorism is a much used term, with many definitions.
This definition is necessarily narrow. For the term cyberterrorism to have any meaning, we must be able to differentiate it from other kinds of computer abuse such as computer crime, economic espionage, or information warfare. I would suggest that the latter is a offensive and defensive function of governments. All of the myriad things that we associate with computers are really combinations of these three actions. An even simpler analogy is that a computer is like a box.