Political Hackers A Growing Threat - Survey

A growing risk for large global companies are
hackers with political agendas, said security firm Control Risks
Group, at the roll out of its annual "Risk Map 2001" survey.

Reuters quoted Control Risks Group's Kent Anderson as saying, "The
methods they are using are in their infancy," but that, "We're going
to start seeing this sort of thing for a whole range of issues." The
survey listed 12 countries as representing "extreme" political and
security risks to multinational companies, up from five in 1997:
Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville and Democratic
Republic of Congo), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Russia (Chechnya),
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka (north and northeast) and Sudan.

The political cyber-threat was highlighted in the British-based
company's Risk Map 2001 survey of perceived dangers to corporate
clients, where Internet-related activism was identified as bringing
the methods of guerrilla theater, grass-roots organizing and graffiti
to cyberspace. Operations identified include espionage, Web page
defacements, "denial-of-service" attacks and virus infections," said
Reuters.

Anderson reportedly told a press conference that "hacktivism" can be
traced back to the 1994 Zapatista guerrilla uprising for greater
democracy and Indian rights in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas,
but that now, "hacktivists" are increasingly focusing on companies
rather than governments.