Cyber assassination is when an individual is unaware that he or she is the subject of a cyber attack designed to discredit them and to call into question his or her credibility or loyalty.
Here's a possible scenario: A senior person in the CIA is working on a case and is disrupting the enemys activities or getting closer to uncover covert enemy operatives. A smart enemy might attack the leader or others involved in the investigation in an effort to slow down or derail the efforts to expose them. They may choose to hack the individuals laptop and place damaging emails that allude to a pay-off on their hard drive. Then all that is required is a subtle leak that gets back to the CIA and you can imagine the rest.
A second example could be a politician who is pushing for sanctions against a country and they hack their computer and put pornography on the hard drive. A covert leak of this information results in an investigation and public disclosure of the porn on the hard drive. This individuals ability to gain or maintain support for their interest in sanctions would be undoubtedly damaged.
You can prove a computer has been compromised (hacked). However, it is virtually impossible to say definitively that a computer has not been hacked. Our ability to defend against this type of assault on individuals in the political, academic, business or industrial spotlight is very limited. For whatever reason people believe the bad and explaining how the compromising materials unknowingly got on their computer hard drive would be almost impossible. Who knows, many of these individuals may have already been set-up and their computers hacked and the damaging evidence planted. Now the enemy patiently waits for the time they need to leak this information to further their cause. Who will be their target now?
-- Kevin Coleman
