Cyber-terrorism is a bit of a buzz phrase right now, I don’t think it is the biggest concern. The largest concern is state sponsored attacks and espionage - which is happening right now and mostly from China.

Cyber-terrorism is another thing to guard against but the sky isn’t falling.

Put this into your government and corporate IT and DR plans and start mitigation now, leave the hype and panic for later.

Badawi said the threat of cyber-terrorism was too serious for governments to ignore. “The potential to wreak havoc and cause disruption to people, governments and global systems has increased as the world becomes more globalised,” he said. “The economic loss caused by a cyber attack can be truly severe; for example, a nationwide blackout, collapse of trading systems or the crippling of a central bank’s cheque clearing system.”

While the case for cyber attack appears persuasive, some believe that much of it is hype. “It’s difficult to avoid comparisons with the Millennium bug and the predictions of widespread computer chaos arising from the change of date to the year 2000,” says Tom Standage, technology editor at The Economist magazine. “Then, as now, the alarm was sounded by technology vendors and consultants, who stood to gain from scaremongering.”

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