Scottish Daily Mail

Hi-tech nuclear arsenals ‘could be hit by hackers’

- By Larisa Brown

NUCLEAR weapons relying on new technology are increasing­ly vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could have catastroph­ic consequenc­es, a report warns today.

Enemies operating online could sabotage control systems to make nuclear-armed states such as Britain launch a strike against another country by mistake, the Chatham House think tank said.

It also raised the prospect of ‘cyber-spoofing’ to create false informatio­n that seems to come from a legitimate source but affects a country’s decision-making process. This could ‘hijack decisionma­king with potentiall­y devastatin­g consequenc­es’.

There is an increasing likelihood of attempted cyber-attacks on nuclear weapons through ‘advanced persistent threats from states and non-state groups’, it said.

The Chatham House report, published today, warns that a national nuclear arsenal, such as the weapons carried by Britain’s Trident submarines, could be hacked and sabotaged through the use of computer viruses.

It said: ‘At times of heightened tension, cyber-attacks on nuclear weapons systems could cause an escalation which results in their use. Inadverten­t nuclear launches could stem from an unwitting reliance on false informatio­n.

‘With the potential for such catastroph­ic consequenc­es from a nuclear weapons detonation attack, it is crucial to have the most robust nuclear policies in place.’

The paper’s authors, Dr Beyza Unal and Dr Patricia Lewis, said that with each new digital component embedded in a nuclear weapons system, new risks emerge.

They added the vulnerabil­ity of systems to hacking would at best undermine trust but ‘at worst cyber-attacks could lead to deliberate misinforma­tion and the inadverten­t launch of weapons’.

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