The fact that a cyberattack can have physical consequences is not exactly breaking news. The use of the computer worm Stuxnet to destroy nearly a thousand, or about a fifth, of the centrifuges in Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility is now a decade in the rear-view.
The warnings of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor” go back much further than that – former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke invoked the term in 2002 – although such warnings became much more high-profile in 2012 when then defense secretary Leon Panetta used it in a speech in New York to the Business Executives for National Security.
By Taylor Armerding