This chapter examines the phenomenon of cyberterrorism through the lens of political psychology. The emergence of cyberterrorism as a novel threat has roiled international security and given rise to a new wave of research that seeks to understand how exposure to destructive digital attacks influences political attitudes and behaviour. In this chapter, we review the leading empirical studies that have emerged as part of this new research focus. We begin by presenting a consolidated political psychology model of exposure to cyberterrorism that guides our analysis throughout the chapter. We then apply this model to the two predominant political outcomes that recur in the empirical literature – public confidence and trust in institutions, and foreign policy attitudes. Finally, we pinpoint the key gaps in our understanding of the psycho-political effects of cyberterrorism exposure and propose a research agenda that accounts for the evolving nature of the field.

One of the more challenging intersections of law and technology is the use of computers and associated systems to commit criminal offences. While terminology varies, the neologism cybercrime is widely used to refer to a range of offending that involves computers as targets (eg hacking); as instruments (eg online fraud and forgery); or as incidental to the commission of a crime (eg using the internet to plan or organise a more conventional crime).1 As noted in Chapter 2, some cybercrimes are essentially the same as their ‘terrestrial’ counterparts, but adopt modern technology for their commission (ie ‘old wine in new bottles’), while others represent significantly newer forms of criminality. Examples of the former might include cyberstalking and online fraud, where the message is much the same but the means of communication is more efficient; while the latter might include distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against websites.

The chapter introduces and explains some terms and concepts that are important for the understanding of the international legal questions with regard to transnational cybersecurity, such as hacking and software vulnerabilities, exploits, phishing, ransomware, or botnets. Furthermore, some basic categories like espionage, cybercrime, or cyberterrorism are laid out in order to distinguish the most prevalent forms of malicious behaviour in cyberspace and to conceptually prepare the subsequent focus on adversarial state conduct in cyberspace.