A controversial issue for the U.S. Congress has been that any cyber attack response by the U.S. military could be viewed by other nations as an unprovoked first strike against a targeted terrorist group. Moreover, the use of cyber weapons by the U.S. could also be argued to exceed the customary rules of military conflict, known as the International Laws of War. Also, the effects of offensive cyber weapons could be difficult to limit; for there is, after all, the possibility that malicious code aimed against terrorist groups could accidentally infect large numbers of systems on the Internet. Thus, such a move could have the unintended effect of shutting down the critical infrastructure systems of countries friendly to the United States.
See Also: Attack; Computer; Internet, Network; Terrorist-Hacker Links.