World's leading IT research and advisory firm Gartner has forecast that by 2015 online sabotages will become multi-modal and very damaging and even a G20 nation's critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by such cyber attacks.

"By 2015, a G20 nation's critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by online sabotage. Online attacks can be multi-modal, in the sense of targeting multiple systems for maximum impact, like financial system (stock exchanges), physical plant (control systems of a chemical, nuclear or electric plant), or mobile communications (mobile message routers)," Managing Vice-President and Gartner fellow Darryl Plummer said in a report.

The report titled 'Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users, 2011 and Beyond: IT's Growing Transparency' was released here today.

"Such a multimodal attack can have lasting effects beyond a temporary disruption, in the same manner that the 9/11 had on the US," it adds.

The forecast also says, "by 2015, new revenue generated each year by IT will determine the annual compensation of most CIOs across the world."

Explaining the reason for this, it says executive and board-level expectations for realising revenue from those and other IT initiatives will become so common that by 2015 the amount of new revenue generated from IT initiatives will become the primary factor determining the incentive of new global 2000 CIOs' annual package.

"With costs still under pressure, growth opportunities limited and the tolerance to bear risk low, IT faces increased levels of scrutiny from stakeholders both internal and external," Plummer said. .