Nuclear Control Centers Are Vulnerable to Cyber Terrorism: Report
A recent report by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) entitled “Hacking Nuclear Command and Control” found that terrorist organizations have the potential to use the Internet and private network infrastructures to stage a nuclear attack.
“If access to command and control centres is obtained, terrorists could fake or actually cause one nuclear-armed state to attack another, thus provoking a nuclear response from another nuclear power. This may be an easier alternative for terrorist groups than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves. This would also act as a force equaliser, and provide terrorists with the asymmetric benefits of high speed, removal of geographical distance, and a relatively low cost,” the report found.
Internet attacks appeal to terrorist organizations because cyberattacks can be accomplished at offsite locations. The report gives the example of terrorists hacking into a Russian nuclear network infracture from China, to make it appear that Russia is forging a nuclear attack on the United States. The report goes on to name scenarios where terrorists could shut down communication networks between nuclear countries and leak false reports to the media, causing chaos and an escalated potential for a nuclear attack under false information. Hacking into a nation’s nuclear command center is also cheaper for a terrorist organization than building a nuclear weapon from scratch.
Heavy provisions are already in place to prevent terrorist access to nuclear command centers. Yet the report suggests that terrorists could hack into government emails and private networks, eliminating the need to attack a nuclear command and control center directly. Furthermore, although orders to launch a nuclear attack are reserved for the top officials and leaders, there is a significant potential for outside individuals to feed false information through media networks, emails, and even government private networks.
The report also found that media outlets sometimes overexagerate the threat of a devastating cyberattack and do not properly define the term ‘cyber terrorism’. As quoted in the “Hacking Nuclear Command and Control” report, Kevin G. Coleman defines cyber terrorism as “the premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, against computers and/or networks, with the intention to cause harm or further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives.”
Kevin G. Coleman, cyberattack expert and founder of the Technolytics Institute, recently interviewed with The New New Internet and further warned of the ‘new face’ of terrorism. Coleman stated in the interview,
“This isn’t new. Back in 1993 a Russian Intelligence Analyst talked about the use of information in warfare and attacking information systems. We’ve been fighting cyber attacks, security breaches and issues around maintaining integrity of data since the early ‘90’s. This has just escalated to a point where now it’s in the frontal lobes of the law makers and the businessmen they have to protect their critical information assets.”
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