State-Sponsored Hacktivism and the Advent of “Soft War”

Abstract

"Not so long ago, cyber “activism” (on the Internet, at least) was limited to pranks, practical jokes, and random acts of vandalism. Pranksters attached software “viruses” to emails that, when mistakenly opened, quickly spread through your organization’s internal network, posting goofy messages and perhaps even erasing data on your hard drive. Cybervandals posted offensive messages or unwanted photos, or otherwise defaced your organization’s website for no apparent reason. About the only crimes committed in those early days were trespassing (technically, by “invading” your private company network or your computer itself) and destruction of property. Apart from mean-spiritedness or a perverted sense of humor, however, about the only reasons given for such malicious activities were a collective grousing by disaffected programmers and computer “geeks” about the monopolistic practices, and mediocre software distributed by Microsoft Corporation."