Like Mayorkas, private-sector computer security experts recently have begun issuing warnings that so-called cyber-physical security incidents involving a wide range of critical national infrastructure targets could potentially lead to loss of life. Those include oil and gas manufacturing and other elements of the energy sector, as well as water and chemical systems, transportation and aviation and dams.

And with the rise of consumer-based products like smart thermostats and autonomous vehicles, Americans are now living in a “ubiquitous Cyber-Physical Systems world” that has become a potential minefield of threats, said Wam Voster, senior research director at the security firm Gartner Inc.

In a July 21 report, Gartner said it was seeing enough evidence of increasingly debilitating and dangerous attacks that by 2025, “cyber attackers will have weaponized operational technology environments to successfully harm or kill humans.”…

Another example, Voster wrote, was the Triton malware that was first identified in December 2017 on the operational technology systems of a petrochemical facility. It was designed to disable the safety systems put in place to shut down the plant in case of a hazardous event.