Cyber Attacks and the Risk of Real War: A NATO Perspective


The possibility of a cyber-attack on any NATO member country escalating into a real war is a pressing concern.

This question is particularly relevant as the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has started establishing ‘cyber labs’ in countries bordering Russia, signalling an increased focus on cyber defence. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue (31 May-2 June) in Singapore, NATO commander Lieutenant Admiral Bob Ruber highlighted the potential for cyber-attacks to trigger conventional warfare.

Read more…
Source: Financial Express


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Industrial robots targeted by malware, which could open them up to hacking

    May 25, 2026

    A critical command injection vulnerability has been discovered in Universal Robots PolyScope 5, the operating system whucg powers the company’s collaborative robots. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-8153, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 and affects all software versions prior to PolyScope 5.25.1. This vulnerability could lead to complete compromise of the robot controller, affecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability ...

  • Tracking Iranian APT Screening Serpens’ 2026 Espionage Campaigns

    May 22, 2026

    Unit 42 researchers have observed evidence of cyberattacks by the Iran-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) group Screening Serpens (aka UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm and Iranian Dream Job). Based on Unite 42 visibility, researchers believe that the group targeted entities in the U.S., Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and likely two additional Middle Eastern entities. This research follows ...

  • GitHub says internal repos exfiltrated after poisoned VS Code extension attack

    May 20, 2026

    GitHub, the world’s biggest code repository and DevOps platform, fell victim to a malicious Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension. The company’s initial assessment is that only internal repositories were exfiltrated. The incident was reported by GitHub on X, with follow-up posts revealing a “poisoned VS Code extension” as the cause. The Microsoft-owned code shack continues to ...

  • WantToCry ransomware remotely encrypts files

    May 19, 2026

    SophosLabs analysts investigated WantToCry ransomware attacks that involved the threat actors abusing the Server Message Block (SMB) service for initial access and then exfiltrating files to attacker-controlled infrastructure for remote encryption. The detection surface is significantly reduced because WantToCry operates without local malware execution, and there is no post-compromise activity beyond exfiltrating files and rewriting ...

  • NGINX Rift attackers waste no time targeting exposed servers

    May 18, 2026

    Exploit attempts are already hammering a newly disclosed NGINX bug dubbed “NGINX Rift,” proving once again that attackers read patch notes faster than most admins. Researchers at VulnCheck said they are seeing active exploitation tied to CVE-2026-42945, a heap buffer overflow flaw affecting both NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus that was disclosed last week after apparently sitting ...

  • NYC Health + Hospitals says hackers stole medical data affecting at least 1.8m people

    May 18, 2026

    New York public health provider NYC Health + Hospitals says a months-long data breach that allowed hackers to steal personal data, medical records, and fingerprints scans affects at least 1.8 million people. NYCHHC is the largest public health system in the United States and provides healthcare to over a million New Yorkers, the majority of whom are uninsured or ...