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Friday, February 14, 2025

2025 Homeland Security Threat Forecast: The Converging Nature of Terrorism, Cyber and Internal Threats

Terrorism 

Terrorism remains a persistent threat to the United States both domestically and across the globe. The threat spectrum remains diverse with threat actors from both domestic and foreign sources, as well as transnational networked sources with both foreign and domestic ties. These actors embrace a variety of ideologies ranging from far-right extremists, white supremacists, domestic militia groups, neo-Nazis, and Islamist jihadists to extreme leftist actors including anti-fascists and groups that elude the traditional definition, embracing issues such as antisemitism, animal rights, abortion violence, and climate/environmental issues. from both the far left and right. These political and ideological groups operate across borders. Groups such as the Islamic State (IS) have inspired attacks in New Orleans and Europe. The IS-inspired New Year’s Day vehicle ramming attack in the French Quarter; the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas; and the discovery of a cache of over 150 explosive devices by an actor suspected of far-right sympathies in Isle of Wight, Virginia, in December are recent reminders of the range of potential threat actors.  

The continuing threat of Hezbollah threats in Latin America, including interdicted Hezbollah plots against Jewish targets in Brazil in 2023, recall Hezbollah’s 1992 attacks in Buenos Aires, and demonstrate their continued presence and capacity to act in Latin America. This potential leverages their ties to transnational organized crime groups in Venezuela, and the Tri-Border Area of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, as well as ties to global illicit flows including Mexican cartels, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), and transnational gangs, such as MS-13, the Tren de Aragua (TdA), and Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV). Together, these global gangsters can destabilize regions, such as the Amazon, and these criminal armed groups can challenge the solvency of states through direct confrontation, and high intensity of crime through crime wars and de facto criminal insurgencies. The convergence of terrorism and transnational organized crime is a volatile mix warranting concern.  

Cyber & Advanced Technology  

Technological threats of concern include transnational criminal organizations embracing cybercrime as a focus of operations. These cyberthreats include fraud, theft, piracy, hacking, the dissemination of spyware and malware, the use of the Dark Web to facilitate narcotics sales, as well as the growing risk of ransomware attacks. Criminal cartels and gangs increasingly use cyber means. This includes digital surveillance of law enforcement posing a counterintelligence threat, money laundering via cryptocurrency, ATM skimming, cloned credit cards, and information operations and intimidation. Ransomware attacks and potential disruption of critical infrastructure are also growing risks. Engineered biological threats and engineered synthetic drugs are also potentially part of the mix, and the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and drones (small, unmanned aerial system or sUAS) are salient technological security challenges.  

Internal Threats 

The internal threat environment is complex and evolving. It contains the continuing risk of terrorism from domestic, foreign, and transnational networked sources compounded by foreign intelligence and influence operations. These terrorist potentials are joined by the risks posed by transnational organized crime, including alliances between domestic gangs and transnational cartels and mafias. The synergy between these criminal and terrorist threats can be leverages as a means of hybrid warfare by foreign state actors and global criminal networks alike. These hybrid threats include leveraging misinformation, disinformation (propaganda) and corruption as means of sowing internal division, eroding public trust, and seeking geopolitical advantage. In this context, strategic crime and corruption can become powerful tools for both hybrid and cognitive warfare. Insider threats and the links between networked actors are, therefore, a key counterintelligence concern.   

Add to this the risks posed by extreme weather, such as the wildland-urban interface fires recently seen in Los Angeles and Southern California, and disaster can potentially exacerbate social fissures. Finally, we must be prepared to deal with converging threats. None of the threat issues addressed in the areas of terrorism and cyber & advanced technology exist in a silo. They all have internal dimensions, can mix with each other, and can combine with critical infrastructure threats, such as threat to the electrical power grid, information systems, and key lifelines. Cyber and physical threats are no longer separate concerns but are fully integrated concerns. Together with the threat of war and the full spectrum of armed violence, these threats demand a whole-of-government approach that bridges the homeland security and national security domains through effective governance, sound intelligence – domestic and foreign – and adaptive response capabilities at all levels of government.  

Dr. John P. Sullivan
Dr. John P. Sullivan
Dr. John P. Sullivan was a career police officer, now retired. Throughout his career he has specialized in emergency operations, terrorism, and intelligence. He is an Instructor in the Safe Communities Institute (SCI) at the University of Southern California, Senior El Centro Fellow at Small Wars Journal, and Contributing Editor at Homeland Security Today. He served as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, where he has served as a watch commander, operations lieutenant, headquarters operations lieutenant, service area lieutenant, tactical planning lieutenant, and in command and staff roles for several major national special security events and disasters. Sullivan received a lifetime achievement award from the National Fusion Center Association in November 2018 for his contributions to the national network of intelligence fusion centers. He has a PhD from the Open University of Catalonia, an MA in urban affairs and policy analysis from the New School for Social Research, and a BA in Government from the College of William & Mary.

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