Could Cyber-Terrorists Provoke Nuclear Attacks?

Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that according to a study commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese Governments, terrorists could use information warfare techniques to make a nuclear attack more likely — triggering a catastrophic chain of events that may be an easier alternative 'than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves.' While the possibility of a radical group gaining access to actual launch systems is remote, the study suggests that terrorists could focus on feeding in false information further down the chain — or spreading fake information to officials in a carefully orchestrated strike. According to the study 'Hacking Nuclear Command and Control' [PDF], cyber-terrorists could 'provoke a nuclear launch by spoofing early warning and identification systems or by degrading communications networks.' Since command and control systems are placed at a higher degree of exploitation due to the need for rapid decisions under high pressure with limited intelligence, cyber-terrorists 'would not need deception that could stand up over time; they would only need to be believable in the first 15 minutes or so.'"

Comments

And *specifically*, you need to read

[jra]

the part of Sum of All Fears where we almost *do it to ourselves*: a major plot point hinges on one Good Guy mis-hearing "fifteen kt" as "one fifty kt" from another Good Guy -- the first being a potential terrorist nuke, while the second "would have to be" the Russians.

There's followup as to how hard it is to push the *clean* data down the pipe afterwards as well.

If that's not a sufficiently cautionary tale as to just how loose and messy things would actually be in a first-strike-response situation for you... then you're not imaginative enough, and probably much happier.

It's amazing how hard it is to think when you think someone's about to nuke your country.

It's somewhat analogous to the traditional election supervisor's prayer: "Please, dear Ghod, let it be a landslide".

Only, um, in reverse.