ABSTRACT
In recent years there have been increasing examples of terror actions by career criminals using their criminal skill sets to maim, kill and create terror; often arming themselves with everyday objects such as cars and lorries. This ‘crime-terror nexus’ appears to demonstrate that criminal organizations and terrorist networks are becoming increasingly adaptive and less distinguishable from each other in a world that keeps evolving through socio-technological change. Because of this alleged adaptivity, there is a growing concern amongst the security community of the strengthening of evidence and logic for the growth of an online crime-terror nexus. This chapter asks the questions as to whether online facilities can be used to create terror. The first part explores the concept of crime-terror nexus and how it could work online, before exploring any evidence of crime-terror nexus’ operating online. The second part, which forms the bulk of this chapter, explores the make-up and operation of a booter-service which was hired out to launch DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and weaponize data in attacks against individuals, organizations and infrastructure. The third part outlines a discussion and draws conclusions.
