Putting the ‘Cyber’ into Cyberterrorism: Re-reading Technological Risk in a Hyperconnected World

Chapter Overview

Threat assessments of cyberterrorism have so far tended to focus upon on two kinds of question. First, the extent to which such a construct really ‘exists’—or at least exists in any way substantively different from other forms of terrorism. Second, its destructive potentials and the kinds of targets this might involve. This chapter considers a more basic set of questions about the cyberterrorist threat. These centre upon the very thing considered to make it a distinctive form of offending: (information) technology and its relationships with the intentions of potential terrorists. Central to this analysis is an attempt to clarify some recurring confusions about the criminogenic potentials of technology in general—in particular the extent to which it can be causally agentic or ‘enables’ offending. I argue that it is only by developing a more coherent understanding of contemporary socio-technic relations that a robust evaluation of the risks posed by cyberterrorism can be made.