Cyber Can Kill and Destroy Too: Blurring Borders Between Conventional and Cyber Warfare

Cyberwarfare has become a fashionable topic in the last decade, partly because of the ever increasing sophistication of computer attacks, partly because of malicious actors setting their sight on industrial systems such as plants. Modern production systems are characterized by an IT-infrastructure controlling effects in the physical world. Such systems are called cyber-physical systems. In this paper the authors draw a distinction between information cyberattacks and cyber-physical attacks. Thereafter we provide insights into the specifics of cyber-physical attacks and examine to which extent they are similar to conventional warfare. Cyber Can Kill and Destroy Too: Blurring Borders Between Conventional and Cyber Warfare