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Policy Issues Regarding Implementations of Cyber Attack 89

industry participants involved with the prototype projects. These policy
issues are the subject of this paper.

5.2 THE NEED TO ADDRESS CYBERSECURITY
FOR PHYSICAL SYSTEMS

Two important, closely related technology trends are occurring simulta-
neously; however, the two trends are not reinforcing.
Trend 1: The integration of technology-based automation capabilities
associated with physical systems. This trend includes:
• the development of autonomous and highly automated vehicles for
transportation (air, ground, and sea);
• the development of increasingly capable 3D printers and robots for
manufacturing;
• the use of network-based access to physical systems to enable remote
control and/or monitoring (e.g., physical system maintenance plans
based upon measured conditions of use, customized patient health
care–related responses based upon collected information from on-body
sensors); and
• emergent Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities that relate to consumer
products, the home, smart cities, etc.
Trend 2: The increasing recognition of the potential risks related to cyber
attacks on physical systems, particularly with regard to human safety, not
typically associated with cyber attacks on conventional information systems.
While attacks on physical systems have not yet emerged as a high risk, var-
ious technology demonstrations have shown the potential threat of these
types of attacks. Such demonstrations include the following:
• Recent automobile attacks (Higgins, 2015b) showing the feasibility of
cyber attacks to cause physical harm;
• Actual high visibility cyber attacks on physical systems, such as the Stuxnet
attacks (Falliere, Murchu, & Chien, 2011) highlighting the potential for
other attacks of this kind. The Stuxnet attacks impacted a large number
of Iranian nuclear-enrichment centrifuges, serving as a warning that indus-
trial computer-controlled physical systems are vulnerable to attack; and
• Less publicized attacks on physical systems that have also occurred. For
example, a German government security report indicated that an
unnamed steel plant suffered an attack that impacted its blast furnace,
causing significant damage (CART, 2013; Kovacs, 2014).