For a couple decades, Russian military-adjacent hacker farms have treated Western businesses as a free-fire zone for ransomware, malware and data exfiltration. There seems to be a general assumption and fear that, if ordered to, Russian cyber gangs could bring down critical infrastructure, up to the point of causing mass casualties across the West. To this point, Russian incursions have mostly been met with targeted sanctions, without major cyber reprisals along the lines of, e.g. Israel's attack on the Iranian nuclear programme at Netanz. (That we know of).
There also seems to be a lingering feeling that Russia isn't as dependent on network technology as the West is, therefore they have a somewhat asymmetrical advantage in this form of warfare. But surely that's not true now, if it ever was.
If NATO were to take the gloves off and attack Russia in cyberspace, what would its capabilities be, and what would such a war look like? Would we see nuclear plants exploding on both sides? Which force is actually superior offensively in this theater?
