Squirrels Dubbed Major Security Threat

Squirrels pose more of a threat to infrastructure than cyber terrorists - or, at least that's what one researcher's project implies.

Cris Thomas says he found nearly five million people have been affected by power cuts caused by animals since 2013. According to Thomas, that's vastly more damaging than deliberate human actions to disrupt power and communications networks.

The surprising claim came at a security conference in Washington and attracted attention given many speeches at such events concentrate on the actions of human hackers, terrorists and state governments in disrupting networks.

Snakes and Raccoons also Destructive

Thomas's research project, dubbed Cyber Squirrel 1, involves tracking reports of animal-related power cuts using search engines, online news sites and social media sources. He found more than 1,700 cases, of which 879 were the work of squirrels, usually chewing through cables. Other offenders included birds with 434 cases, snakes on 83 and raccoons on 72. Thomas says the true figure is likely much higher as he only looked for reports written in English.

In most cases, the animals caused the power cuts by damaging cables. One of the more unusual exceptions was an incident when jellyfish clogged up pipes carrying water into the turbines of a nuclear power plant, leading to the entire facility having to be shut down until the problem was fixed. (Source: theguardian.com)

Figures Designed to Make Wider Point

The report isn't meant to be a serious condemnation of the animals, but rather Thomas's way of arguing that the threat posed by humans is overhyped and that governments don't necessarily need to put as many resources into combating cyber terrorism.

One security expert quoted by the BBC - ironically an employee of a company called PandaLabs - said it wasn't as simple as prioritizing one form of attack over another. Luis Corrons argued that even if human cyber attacks may be far fewer in number, they are still significant because they are deliberate. There's also more potential for such attacks to be coordinated and targeted. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

What's Your Opinion?

Is the threat of cyber terrorism overblown? Is it fair to compare the physical damage caused by animals with the remote hacking humans could carry out? How should government and infrastructure agencies distribute their resources when it comes to cyber security?