Pros And Cons Of The Revolutionary Armed Forces Of Columbia

(U) The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) never has and never will conduct a cyber-attack against the United States or its interests. Prior to June 2016 FARC was a violent guerilla organization. Although they would have benefitted from cyber warfare strategies, they only ever utilized traditional guerilla and terror tactics. The FARC was not technologically adept enough to be a cyber threat. Today, the FARC wants to establish itself as a political party and therefore has dropped its overt hostility. Conducting an attack of any kind would contradict their current objective. (U) The FARC would have benefitted from utilizing cyber warfare techniques. The FARC was a communist guerilla group who opposed, “the privatization of natural

These kinds of attacks are effective, however, they required the FARC to take on a violent role. They also used violent acts such as extortion and kidnapping for ransom to fund their organization. If the FARC wanted the public to receive them well they should not have used such violent strategies. Kidnappings, attacks and extortion are activities conducted by criminals. People would see the FARC as criminals no matter how noble their objectives were. If the FARC would have utilized cyber warfare and terror techniques instead, they could still work to cripple the government without appearing to be violent criminals to the rural public. “It [cyberterrorism] refers to unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in

The FARC was an innovative organization. They were the first known organization to create and utilize narco-submarines to smuggle drugs across the ocean.2 The FARC never applied their innovative abilities towards the cyber realm, however. The FARC focused their efforts on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their chosen methods instead of looking for different ones. The closest it seems the FARC came to being cyber-capable was the use of email.1 “The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) us[ed] e-mail to field inquiries from the press.”1 The FARC never employed the use of any other cyber-related asset to perform any mission tasks during their existence as a guerilla organization. It is highly likely the FARC was simply not knowledgeable of the potential benefits cyber strategies could yield. The FARC existed in the era of no internet and in a country that likely had little internet access even when it did become available. The FARC’s leadership still consisted of primarily their original members up until very recently. These leaders were older individuals who probably never considered accomplishing their objectives through cyber means. The FARC was open to trying new methods to reach their goals, cyber strategies were just not one of