Cyberwar Threat

Gr 9 Up—As this fast-paced program makes clear, computer viruses can now be used to affect events in the physical world. Virus instructions can be sent through the Internet or via a USB drive to cause tangible effects: machines break, doors open, and car brakes are applied whether the driver steps on them or not. The computer scientists who discovered Stuxnet, one of the first digital weapons, explain how agents employed this malignant computer worm to launch an attack on Iranian centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium. Viewers are also shown the destructive results of the Aurora Generator Test. Run by the Idaho National Laboratory, this test showed how a cyberattack could demolish physical parts of the nation's electrical grid by sending signals to breakers on an enormous diesel generator. Additionally, computer science graduate students hack a car's braking system. There is a lot of information to absorb in less than an hour, but, as usual with NOVA, complex ideas are presented in an understandable manner by experts in the field. Viewers hear from those who discovered Stuxnet, a former counterterrorism czar, previous NSA and CIA leaders, and even Edward Snowden.