T 5.102 Sabotage

Sabotage refers to the malicious manipulation or damaging of objects with the aim of inflicting damage on the victim. Computer centres or communications links owned by an official body or company make particularly attractive targets as a major effect can be achieved here with only slender means.

External aggressors and especially insiders can selectively manipulate the complex infrastructure of a computer centre through targeted attacks on important components, so as to induce equipment failures. Particularly at risk here are building-related or communications infrastructure that is inadequately protected and central supply points which are not monitored by organisational or technical means and are easy for outsiders to access unobserved.

Examples

• In a large computer centre tampering with the UPS resulted in a temporary total failure. It was discovered that the perpetrator had several times switched the UPS to bypass by hand and then tampered with the primary power supply to the building. The total failure - over a period of three years there were four blackout incidents - even resulted in hardware damage on two occasions. The outages lasted between 40 and 130 minutes.

• A computer centre also contains wash facilities. By blocking the drains and simultaneously turning on the taps it is possible to induce water ingress into central technical components, resulting in damage that interrupts operation of the productive system.