US not ruling out cyberattacks

(FILES) This file photo taken on June 18, 2017 shows Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, Commander of the US 7th Fleet, speaking during a press conference in front of the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald at the US Navys Yokosuka Base, southwest of Tokyo.Aucoin, the commander of the US Navys Seventh Fleet, will be relieved of his duty following a deadly collision between a destroyer and a merchant vessel, the latest in a spate of similar accidents, a defense official said on August 22, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Kazuhiro NOGI

Singapore: A spate of incidents involving US warships in Asia, including a deadly collision this week off Singapore, has forced the navy to consider whether cyberattackers might be to blame.

While some experts believe that being able to engineer such a collision would be unlikely, given the security systems of the US Navy and the logistics of having two ships converge, others say putting the recent incidents down to human error and coincidence is an equally unsatisfactory explanation.