It is rare for governments to connect cyber attacks with physical property damage but this week the German government revealed in a report that an iron plant in the country was the victim of a cyber attack, which “resulted in massive damage to the whole system.”
The attackers broke into the plants systems via a malicious email and were then able to transition to the network that maintained the plants control systems. From here hackers were able to hijack the system which resulted “in an incident where a furnace could not be shut down in the regular way and the furnace was in an undefined condition which resulted in massive damage.”
This incident shows the ease at which hackers are able to gain access and control over computer systems and cause significant physical damage. The Wall Street Journal has the full story.