Terrorists will use any tool available to them. Even MMORPGs? Yes, a new presentation given at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington gives a scenario on just how an MMO can be used to practice terrorist plots. First the White House... and then... the World! ...of Warcraft?

    

"Secrets within secrets. Black helicopters and balaclavas. Shadowy agencies with limitless slush funds, and black-hearted agents with licenses to kill. Hushed conversations on internet chat-rooms that mysteriously vanish. Men in black with blank identities, and deadly women with a dozen passports. A high-tech paramilitary force divided into clandestine cells and dispersed around the globe..."

It's not the CIA, nor PNAC, nor even Halliburton, Inc....it's City of Heroes newest villains, the Malta Group. They are the men (and women) in the shadows, controlling global events from behind the scenes, yet rarely - if ever - exposing themselves to the light of day.

Young heroes may never see one, yet veterans encounter them on occasion. While these black-garbed agents, carrying forged identities, claim to be from any number of real or fabricated agencies, they all share some things in common. Resembling "future infantry soldiers," they arm themselves with the latest and deadliest weapons - assault rifles, tasers, fragmentation and web grenades. Officers may carry stun grenades as well, to disorient and paralyze targets. Wearing cutting edge armor capable of detecting both the wearer’s vital signs and monitoring a target’s condition, they are able to deploy mini-field artillery with lightning-quick reaction speed.

Deadliest of all are the "Sapper units;" battle-hardened soldiers equipped with a Bio-Energy Feedback Inducer which hunts down and neutralizes super-powered beings.

Malta also recruits veteran assassins, who go through a rigorous training regime. Though lacking super powers,  these "Special Qualification Marksmen" can take on a super-powered hero mano-a-mano. Not only do their formidable arsenals contain weapons capable of taking down a super hero, they also have short-range teleporters, allowing them to get up close to a target before pulling the trigger.

Some heroes report "mobile armored walkers" at several Malta bases. These are powerful robot war machines, equipped with tremendous firepower, including plasma blasts, gas swarm missiles and incendiary swarm missiles.  When injured, two of these "Hercules Titans" can combine into a larger unit.

The various Tactical Ops teams of the Malta Group are organized in "cells" -  insulated, scattered, and autonomous. It's nearly impossible to get accurate information about the leadership manipulating the course of Malta, because each agent knows only small pieces of compartmentalized information.