While technology has undeniably improved our lives in many ways, it has also opened us to a slew of new threats. Nowadays, consumers, businesses, and even governments need to watch out for hackers and cyber terrorists.

For these reasons and others, many small businesses have decided to invest in cyberattack insurance. Following an attack, private companies spend big bucks on network repairs, investigations, and sometimes even legal fees. Depending on your policy, cyberattack insurance covers these costs along with business downtime, extortion, and data retrieval.

Still, the damages nefarious actors can inflict on an industry or country is rather astonishing. Below, CyberPolicy looks at cyber terrorism and its most frightening related predictions.

Clear & Present Danger
State-sponsored hacking has been around for a while. But the phrase didn't become a household term until Russian hackers were revealed to have influenced the 2016 presidential election.

While election interference has been called an attack on our democracy, it doesn't quite qualify as cyber terrorism. Wikipedia defines the term as "the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political gains through intimidation.

This is not the same as disrupting computer networks, launching cyberattacks, or stealing data. While all these techniques can contribute to cyber terrorism, they are in and of themselves, cybercrimes. But enough with the semantics. It's time to talk about the real threat.

According to a report by the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), the United States is in a "pre-9/11 moment when it comes to cyber terrorism. Our cybersecurity infrastructure is lacking. And our enemies are becoming bolder.

The U.S. has determined that North Korea was behind the 2016 WannaCry ransomware attacks that impacted more than 300.