US military to develop cyber-warfare device

It's about friggin' time if you ask me. Softpedia

U.S. Defense Department officials were so impressed with the level of coordination between ground military ops and cyberattacks against strategical targets during the recent conflicts, that they are now looking for ways to weaponize hacking. Aviation Week glanced at such a device and reports that it is being designed to be easily used even by non-techy soldiers.[...]

Apparently, there are several devices currently being developed behind closed doors specifically for such purposes, but the one Aviation Week talks about is intriguing. It is basically a highly complex hacking tool designed for the unexperienced that is to turn soldiers into veritable script kiddies. Granted, script kiddies with a lot of firepower.

This expensive hacking gadget can be carried around in the backpack on the battlefield and used to assist in missions that might require breaking into wireless networks, such as the ones used for VoIP or satellite communications. However, the icing on the cake is the ability to hack into SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems. These systems are used to administrate industrial equipment at power and chemical plants, nuclear facilities, oil refineries, etc., so one can easily imagine how that would be extremely valuable.