4 Ways It Could Happen: How Hacking Communication Could Lead to Nuclear War

A nuclear missile warning system indicated nuclear missiles were headed for the United States.

The year was 1980.

The cause—a false alarm—was discovered before the U.S. launched any missiles based on the faulty digital intelligence.

Now, picture something similar happening in 2018, except it is not faulty technology or human error, it is a team of human hackers inside the nuclear arsenal's Communication, Command and Control (C3) network.

The consequences of such a cyberattack on our nuclear missile defense system or another country's arsenal could change life on the planet forever. 

This is why the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) formed a Cyber-Nuclear Weapons Study Group to look at the cyber threats to America's nuclear arsenal and draw conclusions about any nation-state that uses nuclear arms as a deterrent.

The Study Group includes high-level former and retired government officials, military leaders, and experts in nuclear systems and policy.

Here are a few of the key findings from the group's report: Nuclear Weapons in the New Cyber Age.

"Cyber attacks could lead to false warnings of attack, interrupt critical communications or access to information, compromise nuclear planning or delivery systems, or even allow an adversary to take control of a nuclear weapon."

Cyber attack against the nuclear missile communication chain of command

Let's look at just one part of the report: the ability of hackers to shut down or interrupt communication. The report's authors cited multiple threats:

1. Disrupt or sever communications between political decision makers and the military leaders and communications systems that convey launch orders
2. Disrupt or sever communications between operators and nuclear systems, preventing those operators from obtaining information about those systems that are needed by decision makers or from relaying information to those systems
3. Disrupt dual-use (conventional and nuclear) communications as part of a strategy to disable conventional U.S. warfighting capabilities in the early stages of a conflict
4. Disrupt or sever communications between international military and/or political counterparts, preventing the use of channels to de-escalate a crisis.

It's easy to see how a cyberattack to disrupt communication could potentially lead to nuclear war. The stakes are that high.

The report looks at several other scenarios as well and makes a number of policy suggestions to help prevent a "miscalculation" from leading to a nuclear launch.

Cyber threat against nuclear weapons: trust your enemy?

One of the recommendations reminds us of rules no one likes but everyone lives by for their own safety. Such as the fact you'd prefer to never stop at a red light . But everyone understands the consequences of not doing so could be expensive and potentially fatal. So you just do it.

"...the United States and other countries with nuclear weapons could pledge not to attack C3 systems supporting a country’s nuclear deterrent."

In other words, if nation-states agreed that nuclear Communication, Command and Control (C3) networks were off limits for a cyber attack, the report says it could greatly reduce the risk of a launch based on bad intelligence or a lack of intelligence.

The paper also points out this would be almost impossible to verify. It would be a case of trust your enemy, which seems unlikely.

And the authors also ask readers this question, which they call the big question:

"If ultimately we cannot be confident that systems will work under attack from a sophisticated opponent, and if we cannot have full confidence in our ability to control nuclear weapons systems, what does this say about the continued viability of nuclear deterrence? In an age of cyberwarfare, has the nuclear deterrence strategy that helped guide the West and the Soviet Union through the Cold War become dangerously obsolete?"

You can read the complete report, Nuclear Weapons in the New Cyber Age for yourself if you'd like to read more unsettling cyberwar and nuclear war scenarios.