Cyber Warfare and the Biothreat

Cyber operations are largely unaffected by distance and location. Their employment in the context of creating a biothreat mostly refers to either a drastic increase in the impact of any given bioevent, from magnifying it to biothreat all the way to turning a biothreat to an Extinction-Level Event; or to cause a bioevent without any relevant agent being released or disseminated purposely by same-side operatives. This may occur by manipulating existing bioagent resources, such as legitimate collections, production facilities, repositories and labs, and/or nullifying surveillance, identification, screening, containment and decontamination/therapeutic interventions. The latter may be accomplished by deregulating processes and actually jamming sensors and perceptive means and decision circuits. Another approach to deny effective response lies in the Information Warfare dimension of cyberwarfare; by orchestrating misinformation campaigns it is possible to shape the public opinion so as to negate or at least disrupt the response efforts sanctioned by any sovereign state/regime by dissident social groups, which may have reasons to distrust crisis-response policies, especially urgently enforced ones.