Mutually Assured Destruction Pros And Cons

Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, was originally based on the premise that two countries would agree not to use nuclear weapons upon each other as the result would be catastrophic. That has now expanded to the world of cyber as nation-states are transitioning to means of cyberweapons as opposed to kinetic attacks. This transition is taking place for a number of reasons: it is cheaper to obtain, easier to deploy, and the perpetrator is harder to detect by way of IP spoofing, masking and other sophisticated means.
The United States critical infrastructure sectors are at a higher risk of compromise due to cyberwarfare. The risk of any of these sectors in the United States either being comprised or destroyed will have a serious and lasting effect on the operations of the country as we know it. It can effectively cripple the nation if an adversary is successful in disabling just three or four sectors. “The cost-benefit ratio “levels the playing field,” especially in favor of Third World countries which lack considerable leverage in terms of exercising traditional military power;…” (Eun & Aßmann, 2014).
Imagine a day where a person cannot withdraw money from an ATM to pay for their groceries or rent; a hospital record destroyed or rendered in accessible and a patient is given medicine that they are allergic to; the electric grid in a medium sized leaving a great number of people without electricity, putting people who are on life support at risk. All of these scenarios may very well become a reality if a cyberattack were to target the financial, healthcare and public health, and energy critical infrastructure sectors. The 16 sectors are displayed below in Table