The Cyber Attacks That Changed the World
A worm that broke centrifuges, ransomware that shut hospitals, and a spy campaign hidden in a software update.
Stuxnet, discovered in 2010, was the first known cyber weapon to cause physical destruction: it was designed to subvert Siemens industrial controllers running uranium centrifuges at Iran's Natanz plant and destroyed about 1,000 of them. In May 2017 the WannaCry ransomware spread worldwide; in England it disrupted at least 81 of 236 NHS hospital trusts. The U.S. and U.K. publicly attributed it to North Korea. A month later NotPetya, disguised as ransomware but built to destroy data, caused billions of dollars in damage; in 2020 the U.S. charged six officers of Russia's GRU military intelligence.
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Hero image: A Siemens SIMATIC S7-400 controller, the family of industrial controllers targeted by Stuxnet. Photo: Mixabest · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.