Reference no: EM132390717

Question: Cyberterrorism vs. cyberwarfare.

The only known instance of cyberterrorism in the world today is the Stuxnet worm which was installed on computers in Iran to disable their nuclear reactors which can produceweapons grade fissionable material to enable Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. The Stuxnet worm was discovered by Kaspersky Labs which produced and marketed one of the most effective antivirus programs in the world.Kaspersky Labs traced the origins of the Stuxnet worm to the CIA. The Stuxnet worm was developed specifically to infect centrifuges in Iran's nuclear plant to disrupt their nuclear development program. It has been reported thatIsraeli security agencies were heavily involved in the mission to load the worm. A few years later, an NSA employee took various malware and tools home that the agency used in their cyber operations and loaded it on his personal computer.

The computer had Kaspersky Labs antivirus loaded on it and alerted Kaspersky to the infection as antivirus programs are supposed to. It was reported that Israeli agentswhich were employed by Kaspersky reported that Kaspersky had ties to the Russian government. Shortly thereafter, US intelligence agencies released a report that Kaspersky had connections with the Russian government and recommended that Kaspersky antivirus and all other Kaspersky products be banned from Federal government computers. Considering the timing and sequence of events was Kaspersky banned because they had ties to the Russian government or were they banned because they exposed the Stuxnet worm and the CIA's attempt at disabling the Iranian nuclear program? Some people would say that the CIA's development and use of the Stuxnet worm was cyberwarfare. Others would say it was cyberterrorism. Which was it? Support your answer with research.