Cyber tribalism is the term that defines alliances and associations formed by Cyber tribes usually a group of people in a
virtual community that have attributes such as a common language, similar belief systems, culture, traditions, practices and
interest. The purpose of such a tribe, just like any tribe is formed to communicate, disseminates information and build relationships.
In such an alliance, people who communicate do not necessarily know each other, although this is not always the case. Communication
is done in a virtual manner. There is no assurance of personal interest protection, control and safeguards. Tribesmen have
autonomy with respect to their activities. Members can each converse or relate to total strangers for social or business purposes.
Examples of such communities are news groups, electronic chat rooms, and search engines such as Google, subject interest based
communities and many more. Although there are several challenges and issues arising as a result of these associations, the
immediate ones are spoofing and spam attacks, malware trace, theft, sabotage and sale of critical business information and
more recently cyber terrorism.
This paper explores the role of Cyber tribalism in modern information warfare techniques and assesses the impact of this phenomenon
on business critical information infrastructure. The paper covers paradigms and theoretical concepts underlying information
warfare, On-line systems vulnerabilities, and attack methods used by Cyber tribes. The latter part of the paper examines countermeasures
for managing security threats posed by cyber tribes, and cost implications.
Keywords Cyber tribes - Information warfare - online communities - Cyber terrorism - Security - economics of Security