Normativa europea in materia di terrorismo informatico

EUROPEAN LEGISLATION IN THE FIELD OF CYBER-TERRORISM. Nowadays new forms of terrorism threaten State security and States have not often been able to face catastrophes provoked by cyber terrorism. International community faces new threats against its own internal security against which traditional domestic measures are inadequate. Therefore, multilateral responses and strong commitment for cooperation is strictly required. New kinds of cyber-terrorism are spreading all over the cyberspace as fast as new technologies and internet usually spread. Globalization produced a higher insecurity due to challenges brought by the cyber-terrorism, a new kind of terrorism able and willing to affect and damage international relations. Cyber-space is like a new kind of battlefield open to “geo-virtual” competition within which wars are 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 of undermining enemy’s offensive and responsive capacity and provoking huge material damages. The need for new and adequate legislation arises from the continuous increase of the number of cyber-attacks against computer systems since 2005 on. In past years, EU Member States have been subject to dangerous cyber-attacks mostly directed against enterprises, banks and military sector’s computer systems. Previously unknown and, sometimes, even non-existent, acts of cyber-terrorism are nowadays real and extremely dangerous for State security as in the case of “botnet”, a kind of remote-controlled computer networks, which are now regulated by the European Directive of August 12, 2013.