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A cyberattack could wreak destruction comparable to a nuclear weapon
People around the world may be worried about nuclear tensions rising, but I think they're missing the fact that a major cyberattack could be just as damaging—and hackers are already laying the groundwork.
With the U.S. and Russia pulling out of a key nuclear weapons pact—and beginning to develop new nuclear weapons—plus Iran tensions and North Korea again test-launching missiles, the global threat to civilization is high. Some fear a new nuclear arms race.
That threat is serious—but another could be as serious, and is less visible to the public. So far, most of the well-known hacking incidents, even those with foreign government backing, have done little more than steal data. Unfortunately, there are signs that hackers have placed malicious software inside U.S. power and water systems, where it's lying in wait, ready to be triggered. The U.S. military has also reportedly penetrated the computers that control Russian electrical systems.
As someone who studies cybersecurity and information warfare, I'm concerned that a cyberattack with widespread impact, an intrusion in one area that spreads to others or a combination of lots of smaller attacks, could cause significant damage, including mass injury and death rivaling the death toll of a nuclear weapon.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:11PM (9 children)
Unusually for me, I need help Googling a related topic.
There's a popular urban legend that the USA policy for NBC warfare is we have enough nuke that we don't need bio or chem and as such our response to any bio or chem attack would be fission/fusion in nature rather than returning fire using our (supposedly non-existent, LOL) B or C weapons. I can't find the actual exec order or even speech explaining it; maybe its from an obsolete semi-informal doctrine like the AirLand battle framework from the 80s (yes I know it isn't specifically in AirLand, I know quite a bit about AirLand having been in the .mil at that time, I mean the doctrine I'm proposing exists is out there in some legacy document I haven't memorized the name of and can't find.
Anyway the point of this google request is the point of hyperbole about cyber (sex?) being a weapon of mass destruction is obviously it isn't, but lets try some deterrent such that the next small helpless brown people country we invade for Israel will probably retaliate by changing the front page of CNN to 2G1C, which frankly would be an improvement, aside from aesthetics the point is they want us to respond to "cyber" by returning fire with ICBMs as "all weapons of mass destruction are the same". But I can't find the formal doctrine backing the original claim, although if I could, this proposed amendment to modify "NBC attacks" to "CyNBC attacks" or similar makes sense.
Typical urban legend; "everybody knows" but I can't find the treaty or exec order or nato statement or whatnot.
P.S. Am I the only person out there who can't take "cyber" talk seriously without giggling about cybersex and shitty 90s internet movies? Come on guys.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:36PM (2 children)
Ah, the advantages of having a long memory for news:
This came up because of a policy directive change during the second half of the Clinton administration. They were updating the policies on first use of nuclear weapons to reflect the end of the cold war. I remember hearing the report of this on the CBS Evening News. It was supposedly later clarified by one of the National Security Council people in an interview, though the directive itself was classified.
Here's a link to the Washington Post story that said it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/12/07/clinton-directive-changes-strategy-on-nuclear-arms/96b6788f-d7a1-47ec-a654-7ab368d15edf/ [washingtonpost.com]
This report talks about Robert G. Bell's clarification: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-11/news/clinton-issues-new-guidelines-us-nuclear-weapons-doctrine [armscontrol.org]
The problem in both stories is that the actual doctrine is classified, so you can fill in whatever version you want and say that the other is just obfuscation.
Urban legend? Probably, but not certainly.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:45PM (1 child)
Hmm that strongly implies the doctrine where N B and C are considered equivalent although the USA would only respond to a NBC attack using N, but doesn't explicitly quote it or cite a doc.
Yes was definitely a good and productive lead, although not quite the data point I'm looking for.
Maybe it was never declassified "in the clear" and this is all coming from indirect statements added together kinda open source intelligence style.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday August 22 2019, @10:30AM
There is, however, one important difference between B attacks and N or C attacks. It's hard to contain B attacks to the target area.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:55PM (1 child)
First rule: there are no rules.
Whatever doctrine or policy or pattern of established behavior anybody has established, all that happens when it is broken is that you lessen your predictability / the "value of your word."
When it comes to slinging nukes, the value of anybody's word is about 0. Are we going to sling nukes in response to a chemical / biological attack? Sling 'em at who, how fast, based on whose standard of evidence, etc.?
Case by case - if slinging a nuke will make the world a better place for the nukeslinger after it's done, it's gonna happen. Hasn't been the case since Nagasaki, and the more actors who have nukes, the less likely the world is going to be a better place for them after a nuke has been unleashed on "enemy territory".
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:48AM
Too much predictability is a dangerous liability in the MAD strategy. The foe knows how far they can go before it triggers a response. Too little can be similarly lethal, since the foe doesn't know if they can survive (or can hope you won't follow through on certain fundamental threats required by the MAD strategy). But there is a happy medium where one has enough predictability to encourage others to play by basic, if very ruthless rules, but not enough that foes are willing to push.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday August 21 2019, @02:16PM
As to the definition of cyberattacks as WMD, by current US standards they absolutely could be categorised as such, especially if used to cause an explosive incident or structural failure involving a significant piece of industrial plant or national infrastructure. It does depend on who is writing the definition though. For instance, the DoD requires a lot more death and destruction than the DoJ does, where the definition of "WMD" seems to include pretty much anything that can kill or maim more than a handful of people at once, e.g. the pressure cooker bombs used in the Chicago marathon attacks.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 22 2019, @04:46AM (1 child)
It's not that complicated. There's no point to responding in kind, even if you had the weapons in question, due to their unreliability. A chemical weapon could go anywhere due to weather and it's not going to have much effect on anyone prepared for it - it's really for killing unprepared targets. And biological weapons could be killing your own people generations down the road - it has unintended consequences like no other weapon we've ever devised. OTOH, a nuke will kill what you aim at with the relatively modest blowback of fallout and soot. If someone is killing your people with these sorts of nasty weapons, and they have an identifiable place which you can destroy, then nukes will do the job far more effectively and with less fallout in the multiple senses of the word.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday August 22 2019, @10:35AM
Besides, targeting is much, much better nowadays than it was a few decade ago. You can precisely take out those responsible for a mass attack once you have identified and located them. No need to kill millions of probably innocent people.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday August 23 2019, @12:21AM
Well, let me restate here a Russian doctrine (wich nobody believes). In a nutshell, if Russia is cut off from SWIFT, Russian nukes are off flying.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.