The head of a NATO training exercise has alerted their members that World War 3 will not be triggered via a military attack but instead will be triggered by a cyber-attack on civilian population.
NATO recently completed their annual cyber-attack training exercise “Locked Shield” that prepared their member states in case of a distressing cyber-attack.
The National teams worked for over 2 days to root out a theoretical cyber-attack which not only compromised the water supplies but also compromised the air traffic control centers and the electricity grid of the country.
Christopher Livesay, US correspondent questioned Merle Maigre- director of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, regarding the outcome of a wide-ranging cyber-hack.
Livesay asked: “Hypothetically speaking, an attacker could target the air traffic control system of a country and cause a plane crash?”
To which Merle Maigre responded saying, “Absolutely, you don’t need to start a war by targeting the military – malicious code could render your fighter pilots unable to fire even before they take off. The most critical targets are those in information infrastructure: our banking structures, our traffic control systems, airports and ports.
All of these are run by systems that were set up in the 1970s when cyber security was not a priority. They are vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
Around 30 countries all across EU and NATO took part in the war games exercises, which were held in Tallinn, Estonia.
Experts have linked this year’s training exercises to the abilities of the entire Russian regime under Putin.
Michael Widmann, US Commander says that such a scenario can prepare the countries for an attack that may poison the entire civilian population. He claimed that, “We look at real-life incidents, and then we apply them to our exercises. We’re not trying to make things up.”
