Attack of the Killer Worms

One of the great fears of people in modern western society is the "terrorist" attack. Many Americans have visions of another tragedy on par with 9/11. While I'm not going to say that such an attack could not or will not happen again, I think the more likely scenario is some sort of computerized attack.

Think about this concept for a moment. Military-style strikes can go horribly wrong and place the attackers in harm's way. Even when the people carrying out an attack are prepared to die for the cause, equipment can malfunction. Supplies may not arrive in time or in the right quantity. If it is an attack based on precision timing, a whole host of variables can throw things off.

One way to mitigate all these issues is to undertake an attack from the comfort of a secure location. Under such a scenario, bombs will not be the weapon of choice, malicious computer code will!

Cyberterrorists could wreak much havoc. Imagine if they could devise a worm, trojan or some other type of malicious code to shutdown the financial markets or to zero out bank accounts in one nation -- like the US -- or the world. Imagine if they shutdown the electric grid in this country plunging everyone into darkness.

If either of the two examples above was not fixed quickly, it could well lead to mass panic and chaos. In short order, average citizens would be looting stores simply to survive. The unsavory among us might roam the cities and countryside taking what they wanted and harassing people who tried to stop them. Civil order would breakdown rapidly and a nation might well be torn apart.

Why am I thinking about such a sordid thing tonight? I read an article today on NPR that startled me.

A powerful new computer worm apparently is capable of causing power plants or pipelines to blow up. It's a cyber superweapon called Stuxnet. Experts suspect it was designed to disable nuclear facilities in Iran, but Stuxnet could have consequences its creators did not anticipate.

...The Stuxnet story raises the question of what the consequences of using a cyberweapon might be. Maybe Pandora's box has been opened — this weapon, or one modeled after it, could soon come back in even more dangerous form. Security experts call this "blowback."

Some experts are convinced the Israeli government developed and used the Stuxnet worm as a weapon, to disable a nuclear plant in Iran.

After all, hitting the nuclear plant with a 500-pound bomb would have produced far more collateral damage than attacking it with a cyberweapon, right?

Spoonamore is not so sure. "Compared to releasing code that controls most of the world's hydroelectric dams or many of the world's nuclear plants or many of the world's electrical switching stations? I can think of very few stupider blowback decisions," he says...

In this nation's drive always to up the ante in the arms race, we may have now created something that will come back to haunt us 100 times over.