> A group of enemy soldiers shutting down a hospital would be met with outrage and military backlash. A group of hackers shutting down fifty hospitals is met wi

> A group of enemy soldiers shutting down a hospital would be met with outrage and military backlash. A group of hackers shutting down fifty hospitals is met with jokes about outdated operating systems and derision towards IT directors. The problem with this analogy is that, while an attack by a group of enemy soldiers is easily attributable to a specific nation, cyberattacks can be carried out by pretty much anyone; and it's not easy to say with confidence that a specific government organization orchestrated the attack. I'd be more inclined to compare this to a terrorist attack at an airport carried out by someone who managed to get a homemade bomb past security by simply slipping by while no one was looking. Outrageous, sure, but not necessarily easy to attribute to a specific nation, and probably preventable had security measures not been wholly inadequate.