T 5.5 Vandalism

Vandalism is the damaging or destruction of someone else's property. The results are very similar to those of an attack except that vandalism is not planned and executed like an attack and is usually the result of spontaneous, blind destructiveness instead.

Outsiders (such as disappointed burglars or demonstrators that get out of control) as well as insiders (such as frustrated or psychologically unstable employees) are potential perpetrators of vandalism. The actual threat posed by vandalism is more difficult to estimate than the threat posed by an attack because vandals do not usually have a direct reason for committing the vandalism. Vandalism can be triggered by differences of opinion, personal problems, bullying, or a poor work climate, among other reasons.

Examples:

• A customer at one company became so angry because he had to wait too long that he damaged a network cable running through a cable channel in the waiting area. This resulted in disrupted connections in the LAN over a long period of time because the company was not able to find the direct source of the error.
• Vandalism can also be carried out virtually. Misleading advertisements for the product of one company made certain parts of the population very displeased. As a result, the marketing web sites of the company in the Internet were defaced by an attacker.