Evaluation of Nuclear-Cyber Nexus Imperative in Contemporary Times: Experts

ISLAMABAD, July 21: There was a great need to understand and evaluate the nuclear nexus with menacing cyber activities as the lingering cyber threat was increasing day by day, said Omiamah Khan, an international nuclear security researcher. She was addressing a webinar titled ‘Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons: Unfolding the Real Problems’ organized by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) here on Wednesday. She asserted that nuclear activities when combined with cyber activities made a very lethal combination and sought critical attention, particularly with reference to nuclear espionage, which had the potential to jeopardize the security of all state, non-state, and ideological groups.
Ms Khan mentioned real life cases of cyber sabotage to the nuclear capabilities of states to enunciate the vulnerability to cyberattacks. Mentioning the Manhattan Project (1940) espionage, and the hacking of strategic defence nuclear plans by the German hackers who worked for the Soviet KGB in 1986, Ms Khan asserted that the two events not only demonstrated the theft of nuclear information but also the psyche of the state leaders. To enunciate further the degree of vulnerability, she quoted the unprecedented Chinese espionage on the American W88 thermonuclear warhead, where Chinese hackers, with their extraordinary cyber skills, stole highly sensitive and crucial data for years. A strategic attack on nuclear infrastructure was by definition a non-discrete cyberattack, and was highly pertinent in the contemporary world, she said. She highlighted the most recent instance of Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm developed in 2010, which in July 2020 attempted to disparage the nuclear facility in Natanz, Iran by interfering in the uranium enrichment process at the Natanz plant.
With that, given the situation of Pakistani nuclear facilities at high risk of a cyber-attack, Ms Khan suggested for a serious need for Pakistan to work on the strategic development of nuclear reinforcements. She asserted that Pakistan needed to integrate all stakeholders, i.e., private, administrative, and international, and take them on board to analyze the strategic challenges and ascertain the factors leading to these challenges. Furthermore, Pakistan needed to increase its diplomatic activities at international fora with respect to its exposure to cyberattacks in order to gain maximum support and assistance. Lobbying for a collective resolution at multilateral fora with the aim of asserting that a cyber-attack on the nuclear arsenal of one state is an attack on all states was the need of the hour, she said. Lastly, she underscored that there was an urgent need in the country to revise and reconsider its policy options before another cyber 9/11 or cyber Pearl Harbor occurred.-PR