E. S. PELEVINA

Graduate student

North-Western Institute of Management, RANEPA (Saint Petersburg)

Keywords: Arab East, information technologies, Internet, information wars, cyberterrorism

The latest information technologies and the phenomenon of the Internet have brought the world to a qualitatively new level, when the struggle of states for spheres of influence passes into the virtual plane. With the spread of globalization processes in the late 1990s, Arab countries experienced the positive and negative aspects of its informational aspect.

In our time, new forms of terrorism are emerging or are about to emerge: nuclear, biological, chemical, environmental, psychological and computer (cybernetic) (KBT)¹. The latter, given the massive informatization of society, poses one of the most serious threats to humanity, including, of course, the Arab states.

CYBER THREATS IN THE MODERN WORLD

For a long time, the well-being of society in the vast majority of countries and its economic stability have been based and are based on the operation of information transmission networks and computing services. However, the normal functioning of key information and communication systems is affected by many negative factors, ² which makes it one of the basic tasks of States to ensure cyber security both at the local, country, and international levels.

According to a cybersecurity report from Symantec, cybercrime worldwide caused $158 billion in damage in 2015. According to the company, a total of 594 million people became victims of cybercrime over the past year. The crimes cost an average of $358 per person. At the same time, it took an average of ²¹ hr3 to eliminate the consequences of cyber attacks.

The generally accepted definition of computer terrorism is as follows: it is the deliberate and purposeful use of information system resources to carry out terrorist actions in cyberspace (KBP), as well as to achieve other goals in the interests of terrorist groups.

The term KBT is closely related to another important concept - cyber attacks (CBA). Modern threats to information security (cyber security ⁴) are characterized by high flexibility, and KBAs have long been an effective tool for achieving a wide range of goals, the variety of which is limited only by the imagination and imagination of the party applying them.

According to the well-known Kaspersky Lab ⁵, the most dangerous cyber threats in the world are specially created cyber weapons and manipulations

in social networks. So, with the help of social networks, you can organize various kinds of protests, rallies and demonstrations, and the organizers of such events can be located anywhere in the world, effectively manipulating the masses.

"ARAB SPECIFICS" OF IT TECHNOLOGIES

As part of the civilized world, Arab society cannot ignore all of the above, and there are forces in it that seek to adopt the techniques and techniques of cybercrime. Although the level of development of information technologies (IT) in the Arab East is significantly inferior to the developed countries of the North, but every year the penetration of the Internet and digital technologies in these countries is felt more and more strongly.

The advent of the Internet has opened up new opportunities for various sectors of Arab society.¹¹ The" World Wide Web " was filled with Islamic sites with texts from the Koran and their interpretation by various online preachers. The lack of censorship on the Internet allows sites to appear on the Internet that post texts of a fairly free interpretation of the Koran, causing discontent among conservative Islamic circles around the world. A number of Muslim institutions, including Cairo's Al-Az-Har University, considered the most authoritative institution for the study of Islam, have set up their own websites to respond online to what they consider" un-Islamic " sites.¹²

The development of cyberterrorism and the active use of information technologies and social networks by terrorists in the Arab world are based on the following main reasons (see diagram).

We also see that the Internet is becoming a tool in the religious confrontation between Sunnis and Shiites. Representatives of both branches of Islam systematically attack each other's websites, using hacking as an effective means of religious struggle. A total of 77 Shiite websites have recently been targeted by hackers. From your side-

Scheme. Causes of cyberterrorism in the Arab world.

Compiled by the author of: Klimeiskiy MM. Cyberterrorism as a threat to the national security of the state: development trends / / Collections of conferences of SIC Sociosphere. 2014. N 33. pp. 22-24.

For example, Shiites attacked about 900 Sunni websites, including those of the Mufti of Saudi Arabia and a group of prominent Saudi scholars. ¹'*

Thanks to the Internet, the activities of radical Islamist groups and terrorist organizations have become global in nature. With the advent of cyberterrorism, the concept of "electronic jihad" also appeared. Cyberattacks targeting the computer systems of ministries of Defense, shopping malls, and stock markets pose no less of a threat, and perhaps even greater, than classic terrorist attacks using explosives. At the same time, they do not require large material costs ¹⁴.

The blogosphere quickly became an instrument of political struggle for a significant part of the Arab population. Thus, the development of the blogosphere in Egypt was largely promoted by the emergence of the political movement "Ki-fayya" ("Enough is enough!"). Other opposition activist movements have also joined this movement, creating their own blogs on the Internet. Emerging media platforms like Twitter, Flikr and Facebook at the beginning of the new century gave a new impetus to the development of the Egyptian blogosphere. Cyberactivists use them to send messages to journalists and human rights organizations about illegal arrests, rights violations, etc. ¹⁵

According to Czech researcher Vit Sisler, a significant role in shaping public opinion in the Arab world, in addition to the Internet and electronic media, has become played by video games that affect the process of perception and interpretation of modern realities, while European and American video games usually represent the Middle East in a quasi-historical manner or as a source of potential terrorism, creating stereotypical perception of Arabs as enemies ¹⁶.

Video game production in Arab countries is only just beginning, so most games in the Arab market are presented by Western manufacturers and often carry anti-Arab and anti-Islamic content. By playing such games, the Arabs "attack" their own culture, religion and way of life. Because of this, Radwan Kasmiya, Executive director of the Syrian company Afkar Media, believes that young people who play such video games experience a guilt complex in front of the rest of the world. ¹⁷

LEADERS - UAE AND EGYPT

The Arab world is actively involved in the process of building the information society. The Internet, electronic media, and video games have become important tools for shaping public opinion. The pace of information development in the Arab States has increased significantly in recent years. Their Governments consider the information technology sector to be one of the highest priorities for the development of their economies. According to researchers at The Arab Advisors Group, today about 20 Arab countries have electronic government portals; among them: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates ¹⁸.

Another phenomenon that is gaining popularity in the Arab region with the development of information technologies is the creation of so - called media towns-industrial centers where media companies are concentrated and operate. The Egyptian Media Production City was the first media city founded in the Arab region back in 1997, modeled on the co-

In 2001, Dubai Media City (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) and Jordan Media City (Jordan) appeared. Currently, there are 8 media cities in the region, 5 of them are located in the UAE and one each in Egypt, Jordan and Oman.¹⁹

The UAE remains the undisputed leader in the Arab region "in the IT dimension". They rank 1st among the rest of the Arab States in many IT indicators, namely: the network readiness index, the IT development index, the capacity of the international Internet potential, the importance of the IT sector for the government, etc.²⁰ The Government sees IT infrastructure as a good sector for foreign investment and economic diversification.

Dubai is by far the leading regional center for the development of new IT technologies in the Arab world. In 2000, the TESOM Free Zone {The Dubai Technology E-Commerce & Media Freezone), which includes more than 650 companies operating in the telecommunications, media and information technology industries. Within the framework of TESOM, such large and now world-famous companies as "Dubai Internet City", "Dubai Ideological Oasis", "Village of Knowledge"were created²¹.

Egypt has great ambitions in the field of information technology development. Despite the harsh political regime and lack of democratic freedoms, the country has an active policy in the media sector. It was Egypt that launched the first Arab satellite television channel in 1990, and then two more: Nilesat-1 in 1996 and Nilesat-2 in 2000. The satellites broadcast 117 television channels. 32 radio stations spread information about Egypt around the world ²².

In addition, the countries of the Arab East themselves often become sources of cyber attacks. For example, in 2014, FireEye detected a wave of attacks created by a group of attackers from the Middle East and aimed at several European government organizations and at least one financial institution in the United States. The attacks are known as Operation Molerats. Their victims were the government departments of Israel, Slovenia, the United States, as well as the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC."

According to an interview with the head of the Israel Defense Forces cyber defense unit published in the Financial Times, Iran and the countries opposing it will launch a real cyber war in 2016. According to Israeli officials, Iranian hackers managed to disable thousands of computers of the Saudi and Qatari national oil companies in August 2012. In September of the same year, the Iranians managed to disrupt the electronic networks of several American banks24.

The issue of cyber security in Syria is acute. According to the New York Times, the Pentagon and the US National Security Agency have long had a cyberattack plan in place against Syria. In 2011, it was blocked by President Obama. In 2015, the military suggested that the White House consider this issue again. Thanks to Edward Snowden, it is known that in 2011, the Americans committed more than 200 cyber attacks, most of which were directed against Iran, China, North Korea and Russia25.

The development of information technology in the Arab world is moving in many directions, with substantial support from Governments and often based on specially developed state IT strategies. However, as mentioned above, the Arab countries are vulnerable to external cyber threats precisely because of modern IT technologies. There is a certain danger of information wars that threaten the normal development of individual States and international organizations operating in the region.

CYBERTERRORISM AS A WEAPON OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

Today, cyberterrorism is the use of networks to organize terrorist activities. At the same time, blocking websites, as the history of Snowden's revelations has shown, does not solve the problem.²⁶

The IG terrorist group has gradually brought propaganda in social networks to a fairly high professional level. Militants have become true social marketing professionals, posting selfies with weapons on Instagram, broadcasting fights on Twitter using their own mobile app and an online store that sells T-shirts with the terrorists ' logo. Another channel is films that are specially made by terrorists; in particular, we are talking about the full-length propaganda film "Ringing of Swords IV". Some experts are inclined to believe that it was online tactics that became the basis for the successful campaign of terrorists to attract new supporters.

During the storming of the Iraqi city of Mosul in total

In total, about 40 thousand tweets supporting the GIL were published, which made it possible to display the necessary hashtags in the top search lines - #ISIS, # AllEyesOnISIS, #lraqwar \ \ photos, manipulating the news agenda. Terrifying videos, tweets saying "we are going to kill you", stories about the killed Iraqi military, photos of decapitated or crucified bodies represent a virtual attack on the city, which is no less frightening than reality. In particular, as a result of such an information war, according to The British Guardian, the defenders of Mo-sul left their positions in a panic. A source of the Washington Post newspaper reported that in the first weeks of the IS offensive in Iraq, more than 90 thousand government troops deserted ²⁷.

The Woodrow Wilson Center's 2014 report "The New Terrorism and Nero Media" states that Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook accounts allow groups to become part of the mainstream, social networks are convenient and easy to use, reliable, and free. Some Israeli experts claim that the number of people recruited by militants through social networks is greatly underestimated.²⁸

In 2015, terrorists belonging to the Islamic State group openly declared that they would soon launch a full-fledged cyber war against the US economy and infrastructure. In addition, the Islamists announced their intentions to create a "cyber caliphate" with the aim of conducting constant cyber attacks and hacking into American public and private structures.²⁹

Thus, the spread of cyberterrorism threats supported by the IG group makes the modern world increasingly vulnerable in the information space and puts it in need of consolidation in the fight against cybercrime and the adoption of a unified coherent policy in this area, as well as in general consolidation of efforts to combat the Islamic State group.

WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CYBERTERRORISM

The development of information technologies contributes to the mass spread of cyberterrorism in the countries of the Arab East. This can only be prevented by summarizing the experience of more developed countries that are actively developing and implementing measures to protect against cyberterrorism * ⁰.

Currently, the international community has accumulated considerable experience in combating cyberterrorism. At the international level, several legal acts have been adopted that regulate this problem. The UN General Assembly resolution 53/70 of December 4, 1998 addresses the need to develop international principles for organizing work to counter cyberterrorism, which, in turn, provide for measures to strengthen the security of global Internet and information systems. An important step in the process of forming the international legal framework in this direction was the signing of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime on November 23, 2001 by the member States of the Council of Europe, as well as the United States, Canada and Japan.

The next important step is to consolidate the public and private sectors within States in order to combat cyberterrorism. So, after numerous high-profile attacks on corporations across the UK, the National Crime Agency (NCA) began to actively help network administrators manage key parts of the British Internet infrastructure.

The British Government has taken part in several international operations aimed at combating cyber crime. The NCA, together with European crime agencies, has shut down several servers. A number of arrests were made at 140 airports in different countries. In the course of an international law enforcement operation, about 130 suspects were detained.

In 2015, the international community adopted the following measures to combat cyberterrorism::

-The second report of the Counter-Terrorism Committee "On the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014) by States Affected by Foreign Terrorist Fighters" was presented;

- INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock held talks in Beijing with Guo Shenkun, Minister of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, Zhao Hongju, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and several other high-ranking officials on developing cooperation in combating transnational crime and cybercrime; combating terrorism; and supporting global and regional Interpol initiatives;

- announced the launch of a number of joint activities of Interpol and Europol with the possibility of joining partners from all over the world, in particular: the creation of a joint organization of Interpol and Europol.-

a valuable Joint Cybercrime Cooperation and Compatibility Taskforce to harmonize various legal systems for operational cooperation on money laundering issues on a global scale; developing partnerships against the misuse of virtual currency for illegal operations and money laundering;

- The US Federal Trade Commission and seven international partners-regulators from Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom-have launched a new initiative designed to strengthen cooperation in protecting confidential consumer data.³¹

* * *

In conclusion, we emphasize that the solution to the problem of combating the spread of cyber terrorism requires combining the efforts of not only the Arab States, but also the intellectual potential and political will of the entire international community. ³²

^{Korchenko O. G.} 1 The characteristic principle of forming the classification of cyber attacks // Bulletin of the East Ukrainian National University named after V. V. Savelyev. Vladimir Dahl. 2010, N 1. P. 32-38.

^{Kharchenko V. P.} 2 Kiberterrorizm na aviatsionnom transportom [Cyberterrorism in aviation transport] / / Problemy informatizatsii i upravleniya: Sb. nauch. pr. Vyp. 4 (28). K., NAU, 2009. pp. 131-140.

³ Losses from cyber attacks in 2015 totaled $158 billion. - http://versii.com/news/341903/

⁴ Information technology - Security techniques-Guidelines for cybersecurity. ISO/IEC 27032. 2012.

⁵ Anti-Mai ware - http://www.anti-malware.ru/

^{Buryachok V. L.} 6 Osnovy formirovaniya gosudarstvennoi sistemy kiberneticheskoi bezopasnosti [Fundamentals of forming the state system of cybernetic Security].

⁷ Superterrorism: a new challenge of the new century / / Scientific notes of the PIR Center / Under the general editorship. Fedorova A.V. M, Publishing House "Human Rights". 2002. pp. 92-109.

⁸ Information challenges to national and international security / Under the general editorship. Fedorova A.V. and Tsygichko V. N. M., PNR-Center, 2001.

, Tikhomirov O. O., Lenkov O. S. Sbornik nauchnykh trudov Voennogo instituta KNU im. Taras Shevchenko N. K., VIKNU, 2011, issue 30, pp. 159-165.

¹⁰ Major hacker Attacks in 2001-2014 Timeline - http://tass.ru/info/1408961

^{Abramova I., Pelikanov D.} 11 Afrika v vek informatsionnykh tekhnologii: vozmozhnost ' proryv [Africa in the Information Technology Age: the Possibility of a breakthrough]. 2001. N 8. С. 19. (Abramova I., Polikanov D. 2001. Afrika v vek informatsionnykh tekhnologiy... // Aziya i Afrika segodnya. N 8) (in Russian)

^{El-Kashef Injy.} 12 Islam dot com - http: www.islamicity.com/AlAhram/20051014/fault.htm

^{Sadeq Adel Abdel.} 13 Internet Hacking between Sunnis and Shia: when politics manipulate religion - http: www.acpss.ahram.org.eg/eng/ahram/2004/7/5/EGYP74. htm

^{Kuprienko E. E.} 14 The Internet as a tool of terrorist and extremist organizations http://www.iimes.ru/rus/stat/2005/03 - 10 - 05.htm

^{Radsch Courtney.} 15 Core to Commonplace: The Evolution of Egypt's blogoshere // ArabMedia & Society, September 2008.

^{Sisler Vit.} 16 Representation and Self-Representation: Arabs and Muslims in Digital Games - http: //www.digital-islam.eu/article.do?articleId=1423

^{Sisler Vit.} 17 Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games - http://www.digitalislam.eu

¹⁸ e-Government on the march in the Arab World: 11 Arab countries have already launched e-Government portals -http://www.arabadvisors.com/Pressers/presser-021209.htm

¹⁹ Eight media cities serve the Arab World's media industry with more cities on the horizon - http: // www. arabadvisors.com/Pressers/presser-011109.htm

²⁰ UAE Rankings in Various International Studies -http://www.tra.gov.ae/E_rankings.php

^{Peterson Jonathan D.} 21 The Information & Communication Technology Landscape in the United Arab Emirates - http://wwwl.american.edu/carmel/jp2450a/ author.htm

²² Egypt and the Cultural Globalization www.sis.gov.eg/En/Pub/magazine/spring2003

²³ Hackers from the Middle East carry out cyber attacks on government departments around the world -http://internetua.com/hakeri-iz-blijnego-vostoka-sover-shauat-kiberataki-na-pravitelstvennie - vedomstva-po-vsemu-miru

²⁴ IDF: in 2016, the world expects a powerful wave of Iranian cyber attacks - http://cursorinfo.co.il/news/ novosti 1/2016/0 l / 23/cahal-v-godu-mir-ozhidaet-moshnaya-volna-iranskih-kiberatak/

²⁵ The US is preparing a cyberattack against Syria -http://oko-planet.su/politik/newsday/232591 -ssha-goto-vyat-kiberataku-protiv-sirii.html

^{Rogozin Memorial.} 26 The goal of the "Islamic State" is to create a caliphate, which should include Kazakhstan -http://digital.report/rafal-rogozinskiy-tsel-islamskogo-gosudarstva-sozdat-halifat-v-kotoryiy-dolzhen-voyti-i-kazakhstan/

²⁷ Jihad on Twitter. How terrorists master social marketing techniques - http://apparat.ee/network/ isis-social-war/

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Arab terrorists threaten to launch a large-scale cyberattack against the United States - http://www.security lab.ru/news/458038.php

^{Polikanov D., Abramova I.} 30 Africa and ICT: a Chance for Breakthrough? // Information Communication and Society. 2003. T. 6. N l.C. 51.

³¹ Developments in the fight against cybercrime and cyber-terrorism in 2015 - http://d-russia.ru/sobytiya-po-borbe-s-kiberprestupnostyu-i-kiberterrorizmom-v-oktyabre-201 5-goda.html

^{Pakhareva E. N.} 32 Kiberterrorizm kak tekhnologiya vozdeystviya na molodezhnuyu srede: prichiny i puti minimizatsii [Cyberterrorism as a technology for influencing the youth environment: reasons and ways of minimization]. 2009. N 4. pp. 77-81.

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