Australia Prepares: Suicide Hackers Threaten Critical Infrastructure

Australia is preparing for cyber-terrorism attacks from "suicide hackers", who will aim to bring down critical infrastructure for a "cause" and not worry about facing 30 years in jail for their actions. So far there have been no major acts of cyber-terrorism -- where hackers take down parts of the critical infrastructure by breaking into power, water, transport or even air traffic control systems -- but the subject has been discussed a great deal. On Tuesday, Colonel Paul Straughair, the director of network centric warfare at the Australian Army and part of the Australian Department of Defence, said he saw "no logical reason" why suicide hackers would not strike in the future.

"We see suicide bombers that are prepared to die for their cause. I don't think it is too far before we start to see people who are quite prepared to conduct cyber-terrorism. "While the risk will be high that they will be caught, they will accept that as a fact of life for 'the cause' and be prepared to go to prison for 30 years because they stopped a banking system working or a power grid taken down or took down the air traffic control system of a country for a period of time," Straughair told ZDNet Australia.

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