Cyberwarfare and Cyberweapons
The idea of cyberwarfare, in which wars are fought within the structures of communication systems and computers using software and information as weapons, was first explored by science fiction.
John Brunner's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider is notable for coining the word "worm" to describe a computer program that propagates itself through a computer network, used as a weapon in the novel. William Gibson's Neuromancer coined the phrase cyberspace, a virtual battleground in which battles are fought using software weapons and counterweapons.The Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon is another notable example.
Certain Dale Brown novels place cyberweapons in different roles. The first is the "netrusion" technology used by the U.S Air Force. It sends corrupt data to oncoming missiles to shut them down, as well as hostile aircraft by giving them a "shutdown" order in which the systems turn off one by one. It is also used to send false messages to hostiles, in order to place the tide of battle in the favor of America. The technology is later reverse-engineered by the Russian Federation to shut down American anti-ballistic missile satellites from a tracking station at Socotra Island, Yemen.
Read more about this topic: Weapons In Science Fiction