Cyber Warfare: Digital Weapons Causing Physical Damage By Darlene Storm

Cyber warfare: Digital Weapons Causing Physical Damage by Darlene Storm provides details about a cyber attack on a Turkish oil pipeline that led to an explosion and a separate cyber attack on a German steel factory that also led to “massive damage” after tampering with the controls of a blast furnace. Although most people think of dangerous, advanced cyber attacks as attacks that result in large amounts of data being stolen or files being damaged, such as the Sony and JP Morgan cyber attacks, Storm’s article provides evidence that cyber attacks are far more advanced and dangerous than many are led to believe. Cyber attacks that cause physical damage is a consequence of living in a highly computerized world. There are various methods in which a cyber attack could lead to physical damage, several ways the private sector and the international community could respond to attacks once they have happened, and many methods for preventing future attacks through policy

There are various ways a cyber attack can lead to physical damage. One way a cyber attack could lead to physical damage is by controlling the settings of devices that can easily catch fire or explode, when these devices are controlled by or connected to a computer. One example of this was in 2008 when a cyber attack on a Turkish pipeline led to a fiery explosion when hackers were able to disable alarms and increase the pressure of the pipeline without setting off the alarms (Storm 2). U.S. intelligence believed the hackers were able to exploit “vulnerabilities in the surveillance camera software to infiltrate the internal network” (Storm 2). This particular incident is both interesting and ironic because instead of the surveillance cameras providing additional security for the Turkish oil company as they would be expected to, the