Normativa europea in materia di terrorismo informatico

EUROPEAN LEGISLATION IN THE FIELD OF CYBER-TERRORISM. Nowadaysnew forms of terrorism threaten State security and States have not often been able toface catastrophes provoked by cyber terrorism. International community faces newthreats against its own internal security against which traditional domestic measuresare inadequate. Therefore, multilateral responses and strong commitment for cooperationis strictly required. New kinds of cyber-terrorism are spreading all over the cyberspaceas fast as new technologies and internet usually spread. Globalization produceda higher insecurity due to challenges brought by the cyber-terrorism, a new kind ofterrorism able and willing to affect and damage international relations. Cyber-spaceis like a new kind of battlefield open to “geo-virtual” competition within which warsare not fought by traditional paramilitary or military actors with traditional tools,but are conducted by and through the massive use of cyber-attacks for the purpose ofundermining enemy’s offensive and responsive capacity and provoking huge materialdamages. The need for new and adequate legislation arises from the continuous increaseof the number of cyber-attacks against computer systems since 2005 on. In pastyears, EU Member States have been subject to dangerous cyber-attacks mostly directedagainst enterprises, banks and military sector’s computer systems. Previously unknownand, sometimes, even non-existent, acts of cyber-terrorism are nowadays real and extremelydangerous for State security as in the case of “botnet”, a kind of remote-controlledcomputer networks, which are now regulated by the European Directive ofAugust 12, 2013.