During exercises at CognectCon2025 a number of cyberattack scenarios were discussed that highlighted the risks of cyber attackers leveraging cognitive vulnerabilities to cause major impacts to nation critical infrastructures.
This video is a short report-out on one such possible scenario, before we began discussing how to prevent, detect, and respond to such an event. In hindsight, the scenario seems pretty timely and relevant.
The premise of this scenario was if Iran found itself outmatched militarily by Israel and the US, how it could conduct a strategic cyberattack against its enemies by leveraging useful idiots to launch a distributed attacks with a self-replicating destructive worm against all 16 US Critical Infrastructure sectors.
The aggressor would launch a disinformation and influence campaign targeting westerners who want the violence in the middle east to stop and believe that a social ‘Like’ viral campaign will make that happen. Instead, they become unknowing distribution points for a malicious worm that attacks the very infrastructure they rely upon.
Such conferences are vitally important. Communication and collaboration among cybersecurity professionals, such as these exercises, fuel creativity and innovation needed to predict and prepare against future cyber-attacks. Understanding how cognitive vulnerabilities are both a weakness and an opportunity in cybersecurity is the next significant area for our industry.
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