Your editorial about Tehran's alleged cyberattack on supermarket refrigerators and freezers that spoiled food across Europe last month should compel leaders to take urgent action to protect infrastructure ("Iran Attacks Europe's Refrigerators," Review & Outlook, Nov. 10). Whack-a-mole cybersecurity is a losing game. It's time to wake up, pony up the funds and take America's critical infrastructure completely offline.
Yet the editorial doesn't explicitly mention the more serious threat: artificial intelligence. Today's AI can find a vulnerability, break into a system, steal confidential data, plant something harmful and create a backdoor before a human operator even realizes an intrusion has occurred.
With the rise of AI and coming quantum computing, the only foolproof solution is total online inaccessibility for our vital systems. We must force a physical presence at critical nodes to initiate any hardware or software changes. If an automated adversary can't reach a system over the internet, it can't compromise it.
Mark Rath
Murrysville, Pa.
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Iranian hackers allegedly ruining grocery-store food and equipment valued at millions of dollars begs a question: In our era of runaway technology, why are grocery-store refrigerators connected to the internet?
Granted, smart fridges can allow for remote monitoring, lowering operating costs and automated tracking. But most grocery stores don't need refrigeration units with internet access. Trusted grocery managers can reliably make adjustments to equipment by hand whenever necessary.
Just because technological innovations make new things possible, that doesn't mean the benefits always outweigh the risks. We all ought to pause more often and consider whether such capabilities truly make sense.
Darren McKinney
Washington
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