Cyber weapons are cheap and effective tool what almost anybody can get

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Kimmo Huosionmaa

Cyber weapons are an effective tool if somebody wants to harm Internet-based networks. This kind of weapon is in the worst scenario so effective as so-called "blackout" bomb. Cyber weapons are actually computer viruses or other malware what will destroy computers operating systems and databases and if malware is so-called "logical bomb". This type of computer virus is made that it activates in one particular day when it can cause very bad damages for computer infrastructure.


Computer weapons are theoretically ineffective against military system what is prepared for an attack. But if an attacker finds system what is not immune to computer viruses he must cause very much trouble. In the worst scenario, the cyber attacker takes control in some nuclear plants computer. And in this scenario heart of reactor melts down and causes china syndrome, what could cause very large scale nuclear disaster, because in this scenario liquid plutonium will flow to land.


Those command systems are theoretically immune because they use special Unix or Linux based operating systems and there is used the only special checked code, what will not upload from the Internet. But there is a backdoor what might use with a cyber attack. If the key card will be reprogrammed with the computer virus, what will break in the system by door scanners could situation turn very bad. Computer virus can't destroy the operating system itself but it can remove databases of the system.


If backup systems don't connect automatically when problems will see, there is a risk that operational control will be loose is very real. Cyber weapons are more effective against civil ICT-infrastructure. This kind of attack may be for financial reasons, and it might use by criminals who want to make bank robbery with hacking. After hacking a system with master users password the criminal must cover his prints and after money transferring they could explode all logs of the system.


This is for deleting databases what mission is to collect information of data traffic, and that will make impossible to tracking those guys from the net. Otherwise using "logical bomb" will be used in simple blackmailing operation. After hiding malware to some company's network could criminals sent a letter to that company, that if the target will give them a million criminals will give code what helps them to remove the virus from the system of that company. Some cyber weapons just sent "ping" or "echo request" asks for the target system, what can't be used in normal Internet communication, and this kind of attack is called a denial of service attack.


The cyber attacker can also use malware for spying some systems. And that kind of malware can give any information what moves in target organization computers to the spy who collects data for production plannings and next year designs. That can cause very strong financial problems to a company what have spent time and money for a new design of a product.  And after that, some hacker steals that data and sells that to other companies what can begin production immediately. That's why stealing business secrets is against law.