Patriot hacking is a term for computer hacking

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 or system cracking in which citizens or supporters of a country, traditionally industrialized Western countries but increasingly developing countries, attempts to perpetrate attacks on, or block attacks by, perceived enemies of the state

Enemy of the state

An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state, such as treason. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression. For example, an authoritarian regime may purport to maintain national security by describing social or political...

. Recent media attention has focused on efforts related to terrorists and their own attempts to conduct an online or electronic intifada - cyberterrorism.

Patriot hacking is illegal in countries such as the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 yet is on the rise elsewhere. "The FBI said that recent experience showed that an increase in international tension was mirrored in the online world with a rise in cyber activity such as web defacements and denial of service attacks," according to the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

At the onset of the War in Iraq in 2003, the FBI was concerned about the increase in hack attacks as the intensity of the conflict grew. Since then, it has been becoming increasingly popular in the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 and Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. These are the countries which have the greatest threat to Islamic terrorism and its aforementioned digital version.

See also

• Black hat
  Black hat
  A black hat is the villain or bad guy, especially in a western movie in which such a character would stereotypically wear a black hat in contrast to the hero's white hat, especially in black and white movies....
  
  
• Exploit (computer security)
  Exploit (computer security)
  An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic...
  
  
• Cyber spying
  Cyber spying
  Cyber spying or Cyber espionage is the act or practice of obtaining secrets without the permission of the holder of the information , from individuals, competitors, rivals, groups, governments and enemies for personal, economic, political or military advantage using illegal exploitation methods on...
  
  
• Cyber Storm Exercise
  Cyber Storm Exercise
  The Cyber Storm exercise was a simulated exercise overseen by the Department of Homeland Security that took place February 6 through February 10, 2006 with the purpose of testing the nations defenses against digital espionage...
  
  
• Cyber warfare
• Grey hat
  Grey hat
  A grey hat, in the hacking community, refers to a skilled hacker whose activities fall somewhere between white and black hat hackers on a variety of spectra. It may relate to whether they sometimes arguably act illegally, though in good will, or to show how they disclose vulnerabilities...
  
  
• Hacker (computer security)
  Hacker (computer security)
  In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
  
  
• Hacker Ethic
  Hacker ethic
  Hacker ethic is the generic phrase which describes the moral values and philosophy that are standard in the hacker community. The early hacker culture and resulting philosophy originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s and 1960s...
  
  
• Hack value
• Hacktivism
  Hacktivism
  Hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega...
  
  
• IT risk
  IT risk
  Information technology risk, or IT risk, IT-related risk, is a risk related to information technology. This relatively new term due to an increasing awareness that information security is simply one facet of a multitude of risks that are relevant to IT and the real world processes it...
  
  
• Metasploit
• Penetration test
  Penetration test
  A penetration test, occasionally pentest, is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders and malicious insiders...
  
  
• Vulnerability (computing)
  Vulnerability (computing)
  In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
  
  
• White hat
  White hat
  The term "white hat" in Internet slang refers to an ethical hacker, or a computer security expert, who specializes in penetration testing and in other testing methodologies to ensure the security of an organization's information systems...