Regional conflicts may find global casualties in the so-called cyberwar.
The latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is now in its fifth month. At the time of writing, the war had claimed more than 350 lives (mainly Palestinian), with as many as 10,000 injured.
Meanwhile, the parallel cyber-campaign being waged by both sides suggests that future regional conflicts will play in a global theatre. In essence, every company online represents a potential target.
"It's like a guerrilla war with all types of combatants," says Ben Venzke, manager of intelligence production at the private Internet security consultancy iDefense.
"We're seeing everything from unsophisticated defacements being done by teenagers, to known terrorists plotting attacks. Unity [a Palestinian umbrella group] has recruited a group of IT professionals and admins called the Iron Guards, and they are very sophisticated in what they can do."
Venzke has been hunched over his computer since October monitoring Web sites and chat rooms, working his "intelligence-community sources," and preparing clients for imminent attacks.
He sees no sign of a slowdown.
His most recent count listed more than 90 Israeli sites, mainly business and government, that have been attacked, while 25 pro-Palestinian sites have been attacked.
Attackers have used everything from viruses like Melissa and LoveLetter to dubious sounding programs like EvilPing and Attack 2.51.
Unity, which has ties to the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, launched Phase 3, its denial-of-service campaign, largely by word of mouth.
Through obscure hacker chat rooms and encrypted email messages, pro-Palestinians from around the world were directed to a Unity Web site.
Once there, they were automatically redirected to yet another site and greeted with this call to action: "Be one of the defenders of Resistance's Web sites."
Surfers could then click on one of three links and instantly and effortlessly launch a FloodNet (DoS style) attack from their computer against 11 Israeli government groups and businesses.
Among those pinged into submission were the Israel Defense Force home page, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange site, and the Bank of Israel.
But it was target No. 12â€"New Jersey-based Lucent Technologiesâ€"that sent a warning flare to businesses across the Atlantic.
The so-called war would not be confined to the Middle East, and American businesses could end up casualties.
And this is only the beginning. In an email interview, a representative of Unity warns that Phase 4 will "attack Zionist and pro-Zionist e-commerce sites. . . . If any Islamic or Arabic or Anti-Zionist Web sites [are] attacked, the reply this time will be over any scale."
While Unity has been busy trying to coordinate attacks, most of the damage has been done by freelancing hackers.
By most accounts, the Web war in the Middle East started on October 6, 2000, when a pro-Israeli hacker launched an attack from a Web site.
Among the sites attacked were the official sites for Hamas (a Palestinian Islamist movement), Hezbollah, and the Palestinian National Authority.
"That caused a major retaliation by the Palestinians," says Venzke. Indeed, many pro-Palestinian hackers from around the region began defacing Israeli sites.
A group of Pakistani hackers called G-Force Pakistan, plus a hacking duo named mOrOn and Nightman, as well as someone named tRicky, have independently defaced scores of Israeli sites.
A hacker named DoctorNuker broke into the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee Web site and made off with 700 credit card numbers and then sent out a mass e-mailing to 3,500 people whose addresses he also pinched.
