MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. The Internet is becoming a key instrument in terrorists’ hands in planning and making preparations for terrorist attacks, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Yuri Kokov, told the daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta, published on Tuesday.

"The information openly available in the cyberspace makes the Internet a key instrument in planning and making preparations for terrorist attacks. This concerns the choice of potential targets, collection of essential information, identification of vulnerabilities, choice of effective methods and means of attack and the acquisition of related goods and services," Kokov said.

In his opinion the Internet creates logistic advantages in plotting and staging terrorist attacks, narrows the opportunities for their timely prevention, and makes it more difficult to identify masterminds and perpetrators.

"Online platforms are being used as a virtual teaching aid. Detailed instructions on how to join terrorist organizations, make explosives and dangerous materials and plot and commit terrorist attacks are published there in easily accessible multi-media formats in different languages," Kokov said, when asked in what ways the terrorists used this resource. The same instructions and guides described the techniques of unauthorized access to computer data and for increasing the protection of illegal communications in the worldwide web, such as widely available methods of coding messages.