Adversaries may seek to achieve a sustained loss of control or a runaway condition in which operators cannot issue any commands even if the malicious interference has subsided. The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) reported a targeted attack on a steel mill in its 2014 IT Security Report. These targeted attacks affected industrial operations and resulted in breakdowns of control system components and even entire installations.

As a result of these breakdowns, massive impact resulted in damage and unsafe conditions from the uncontrolled shutdown of a blast furnace.