This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

The Anderson Report concluded that computers provided would-be attackers with a “unique opportunity for attempting to subvert” their systems and access their underlying data. “Coupled with the concentration of the application (data control systems, etc.) in one place” (the computer system), that capability “makes computers a uniquely attractive target for malicious (hostile) action.” The design of hardware and software systems was “totally inadequate to withstand attack,” the report concluded; and if one malicious user could control a single computer node, “the entire network may be compromised.” The only limits to attack were attackers’ own imagination and skill.