In recent days, the strange and shadowy world of cyberwarfare suddenly became very physical. Ukrainian drone strikes hit Russia’s largest data centre, a massive facility owned by Sberbank, the country’s biggest bank and technology company. This came right after Ukraine had already struck three data centres belonging to Yandex, the tech giant often called “Russia’s Google.” The impact on ordinary life in Russia was immediate and severe. Yandex’s traffic reportedly plunged by 94 percent, meaning millions of people suddenly found their email, search, maps, music, ride-hailing, marketplace and even financial services either broken or frozen. For a few days, the…

It began like any other Tuesday morning in Auckland—except that it didn’t. As dawn broke over the city, commuters were already making their way through the grey light toward stations, coffee cups in hand, mentally preparing for the usual rush. But this morning, something was wrong. The City Rail Link’s new underground network, still fresh and impressive to many Aucklanders, had suddenly become the source of chaos rather than convenience. A false fire alarm at Karanga-a-Hape station had triggered an automatic response that rippled outward through the city’s rail system like a stone dropped into a very crowded pond. The…