Cisco has announced in their 2017 Midyear Cybersecurity Report that malicious software attacks may leave more lasting effects than the recent widespread ransomware epidemic and massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Permanent physical damage as a result of cyber attacks is a real world consequence of modern malicious software. Infamous malware package Stuxnet showcased the abilities of software to cause serious and irreversible damage in the real world almost a decade ago by crippling Iranian nuclear facilities.
As the threat landscape changes, Cisco is warning that there will be a rise in destruction of service (DeOS) attacks that can permanently disable hardware. Flashing or corrupting the firmware on internet connected devices has been observed as a fast growing trend. Even though the median time to detection for intrusions and infections has dropped to less than eight hours, the fact that software might not be able to fix damages should be highly concerning.