Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Where MAD falls apart is when the leaders don't give a rat's ass about the civilian population.
I would say that recent events in Iran make it pretty clear that the civilian population doesn't matter all that much to the leaders. North Korea is at that level or perhaps worse. If the military leadership in either country could be confident of survival I don't see MAD being a deterrent at all.
So what if 80% of the civilian population is wiped out?
If you must have nuclear armed subs, arm each one with one low-yield nuke. Any more and you are just begging for an accident.
I think you're missing the concept of "assured destruction" in Mutually Assured Destruction.
An american missile sub can have 20 missiles, with 8x50kt warheads per missile. That's 160 nuclear warheads that can be targeted independently and can each cause substantial casualties if aimed at civilian targets. But that's what it's meant to be - a guaranteed "revenge" weapon, that is fully capable of demolishing or severely crippling a whole nation, even if ALL of the ground nukes are disabled by a first strike. The terror such a weapon commands, is precisely the reason why safety is assured.
This is why small nuclear powers are so much less stable. India and Pakistan are at a much higher risk of using nuclear weapons in the field against each other than US and Russia, simply because neither of them have the capability of destroying the other.
That being said, as has been mentioned previously, MAD relies on rational players to work.
This paper shows a significant misunderstanding of the command and control structure and procedures at STRATCOM (formerly SAC), National Command Authority (NCA) and other key elements of the process. I am waiting for the author to explain how the attacker will obtain the encryption codes to MILSTAR, SLFCS or any of the other communication channels into a Minuteman Launch Control Facility or the equivalent communication channels going to bomber squadrons, submarines and other force components with nuclear capability. Then there are enable codes, launch codes and various other keys that would be needed. The article also fails to address safeguards in place. One needs to only examine the "incidents" that have occurred in real life, such as a exercise tape accidentally being loaded at SAC, prompting incoming ICBM warnings, to see that these procedures worked even 20 or 30 years ago, and they hve only been improved since then.
Having worked on the unauthorized launch studies for Peacekeeper (the decommissioned ICBM system often referred as MX), I can tell you the author did not have the data needed to be able to conduct this study, much less draw any valid conclusions