What is computer sabotage?

Answer 1

Any deliberate action that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a computer would be considered sabotage. Examples would include writing and releasing a virus, worm, or trojan, sending out spam, initiating a denial of service attack, installing a "back door", altering or deleting data, damaging computer equipment, causing data on someone else's computer to become corrupted, encrypting someone's hard drive and holding it hostage until they pay a ransom for the decryption key, intercepting computer traffic and altering it before sending it along (a type of man-in-the middle attack), or causing physical damage to a computer system by deliberate malicious actions. This list is not exhaustive, but it should give you a sense of the types of things that constitute "computer sabotage". One of the most worrisome current threats is the possibility for someone to hack into a control system for some utility and cause it to malfunction. This has already happened when someone hacked into a sewage treatment system in Australia and caused valves to open that caused raw sewage to be discharged without treatment. Other systems such as telephone, electrical power, and transportation remain potentially vulnerable to criminals.