Jeffrey Carr, GreyLogic

The threat of cyber terrorism is relatively low, but not because adversaries lack the technical capabilities, according to Jeffrey Carr, author and a principal at GreyLogic Inc.

“In our investigations, we see a lot of very highly skilled engineers that are part of an extremist religious organization that get involved in hacking of one type or another,” Carr told Federal News Radio. The skill level [is] there.”

It begs the question: Why have the cyber terrorists not used their skills? Carr explained it is a generational issue: Heading those cells are older men, who prefer a physical type of attack, he said.

“Even if an Internet-savvy extremist were to propose some type of cyber attack, I suspect it would just get shelved,” Carr told Federal News Radio.

However, Carr anticipates that in the next seven or eight years, cyber terrorism will become more common as more Internet-savvy terrorists take on leadership positions, and the old leadership dies off.

The New New Internet spoke to Carr earlier this year about his thoughts on cyber warfare. Read the interview here.

Last year, McAfee released a report ranking Singapore as the 10th-riskiest domain out of 104 around the world. The report noted that almost one out of every 2o tested .sg domains are being used for phishing and to distribute viruses.

Chan Yeng Kit, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, announced the country’s first cybersecurity training and accreditation program will be launched in September. The purpose of the Qualified Information Security Professional program is to teach cybersecurity professionals how to defend Singapore from hackers, he said.

As IT becomes more pervasive, cyber criminals work hard on getting more organized and using various techniques to steal personal information, Kit said in his opening remarks at SecureAsia@Singapore 2010 Conference. He emphasized the importance of preventing end users from becoming the weakest link in the information-security strategy and instead recruiting them as the first line of defense in thwarting cyber attacks.

“[C]yber attacks can affect anyone, any organization and any country,” the secretary said. “An attack can cripple businesses, and even bring down a country’s economy. Building a secure and safe cyber environment is thus a top priority. The challenge, while global and complex, is not insurmountable. Through close collaboration and continued investments in enhancing competencies, we can succeed in our efforts.”

The post goes on to warn online jihadists “to not enter any of the links that concern these websites, and not even to surf [the content] until you receive the confirmed news by your brothers, Allah-willing.”

Outages of jihadist websites are relatively common, though this may be the first example on a website being hacked, Evan Kohlmann of Flashpoint Partners told Wired.

“The official Afghan Taliban website has, of course, routinely been knocked offline and disabled by cyber vigilantes and other culprits, but this would be the first instance that I’m aware of it being actually ‘infiltrated,’” he said. “It’s an unsettling prospect for security-minded online jihadists, because such sites can be manipulated by a variety of hostile parties in order to harvest a breathtaking amount of personal data on regular visitors.”

While no one has claimed credit for the hack, the Department of Defense has previously announced its intentions to take-down terrorist affiliated websites.