The Worst Possible Cybersecurity Breaches Could Be Far Worse Than You Imagined

The cyber-ruffians who briefly tanked the stock market recently by faking a news tweet about an attack at the White House showed how much damage can be done with a few well-placed keystrokes. Those who hacked into a Department of Labor website earlier this week could have wreaked even more havoc, say, if they successfully tweaked the monthly jobs report.

Neither seemed particularly sophisticated, or malicious. But they do beg the obvious question: How much damage could a group of well-trained hackers do, economic and otherwise, if they really wanted to?