The US Navy investigator and cybercrime specialist Kenneth Geers characterises the typical response of powerful individuals as they hear this doomsday scenario outlined as a sort of unbridled terror inspired by technology. Such a doomsday scenario might sound drastic - more of a cyber-apocalypse than a cyber-attack - but it is one that has been outlined many times by the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and the Joint Intelligence Committee. A stream of fake messages and alerts might send fire engines to the wrong locations, and ambulances to hospitals already filled with patients.Īnd the coup de grace? Hidden programs inside the country's electricity grid might then jump to life, shutting down power supplies, creating targeted blackouts, even sending nuclear reactors into freefall. While the emergency services struggle to cope with the confusion, they could fall victim to attacks themselves. The ensuing chaos would create panic around the country, with airports from Heathrow to Glasgow on high alert, facing the horrifying prospect of midair collisions as the aircraft above them are fed wrong information. The transport network might fail, too, causing air-traffic control computers to go haywire, rail systems to break down, traffic light systems to be reprogrammed. The already hammered British economy might soon be crippled as the nation's bank accounts are drained of their funds - stripping billions out of people's hands in seconds - and major online shops including eBay and Amazon fail.Įlsewhere, communications networks could come under fire, with phone, internet and mobile systems quickly collapsing. In the worst-case scenario, what might start slowly - a few propaganda messages here, a hacked website there - could quickly spread. Their nightmare? A co-ordinated strike that targets businesses, public services, central government, the financial sector and communication systems. In fact, the implications of a cyberwar are, right now, being carefully considered by intelligence chiefs in Britain and around the western world. The prospect of a cyberwar launched by someone too young to drink is, frankly, ridiculous. The film plugged into every paranoid star-wars fantasy from the Reagan era but now it is unlikely to elicit more than a snigger. But it made its mark on millions of people around the world - and introduced us to the stereotype of the precocious young hacker. Matthew Broderick's turn in the film WarGames, as a nerdy kid who accidentally blunders into a highly classified computer system that controls the US nuclear arsenal and proceeds to take the world to the brink of nuclear war, didn't win many awards. The economy looked healthy, there were only four channels on the TV - and, if you believed Hollywood at least, the biggest threat to world security was a pimply teenager with a computer. OR Goto Start menu » "All apps".Back in 1983, the world was a simpler place.
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