Dan Philpott, editor of FISMApedia (Federal Information Security Management Act), is a little less dismissive, but said "bullet time," while, "conceptually interesting," would be effective as countermeasure in very few places. "The problems aren't in responding, but identifying attacks when they occur."

McGraw also dismisses as "ridiculous" the possibility of a serious cyberattack by Iran. "They couldn't even defend their nuke," he said, referring to the Stuxnet worm that wiped out an estimated fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges in 2010.

He believes Iran has improved its cyber defenses since then. "They would be stupid if they didn't," he said, but still contends the country is not close to capable of a sophisticated attack.

Philpott is not so sure. "Iran has very well-educated population and good access to computers, so it is probably adequate to the task," he said. "I don't know that they have a cyberattack mechanism, since their government is very fractured [among] public, private and religious [entities]."

"But I wouldn't out of hand dismiss their capabilities. I tend to agree with government experts that all of the qualities are there,"Ã'Â Philpott said.