CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY BELGIUM 2.0 – 2021-2025 2.1.3 Hacktivism Hacktivism is the performance of various intentional cyber activities for the purpose of promoting a political agenda, religious belief, or social ideology. It may be a politically motivated movement that carries out this activity. Currently, the most commonly used attack methods in this regard are doxing2, DDoS3, web defacement4 and unlawfully taking over identities and social media channels. 2.1.4 Terrorism Cyberterrorism is the carrying out of violent activities using the internet, with the underlying goal of gaining political advantage through intimidation and instilling fear. These acts can result in destruction, loss of life and/ or physical harm. The most obvious targets of cyberterrorists are public services, industries and critical infrastructures. For example, some terrorist groups use the online world as a propaganda and recruitment channel for terrorism. Since 2016 there has been a clear transition from the use of Twitter and Facebook to more encrypted communication channels. Current developments also point to an increasing use of cyber tools to finance terrorism, e.g. through ransomware, cryptomining or even crowdfunding. In this context, there is great concern that terrorist organizations will also carry out more cyberattacks. However, it seems that, until now, these attack techniques are fairly limited. To carry out DDoS attacks, groups still purchase domain hosting services, download software and rent botnets, rather than developing their own cyber weapons. 2.2 Technology trends and risks The technological landscape does not stand still, and new products are coming onto the market all the time. Organizations are applying these new technologies to stay competitive and develop new opportunities. However, there are also risks associated with these technological developments, also because they help further develop the skills of threat actors. It is therefore crucial to always be aware of developments in technologies and the associated risks. 2 Doxing is the usually unlawful public dissemination of a person’s information or documents. 3 DDoS stands for distributed-denial-of-service attacks in which a large volume of data is sent to one specific system to disrupt its normal operation. 4 A web defacement is the unlawful alteration of the content of a website or webpage 16