Israel has acknowledged that its recent airstrikes against Hamas were a real-time response to an ongoing cyberattack. From Twitter:
CLEARED FOR RELEASE: We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.
HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed. pic.twitter.com/AhgKjiOqS7
Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 5, 2019
I expect this sort of thing to happen more — not against major countries, but by larger countries against smaller powers. Cyberattacks are too much of a nation-state equalizer otherwise.
Another article.
EDITED TO ADD (5/7): Commentary.
I doubt that this is actually the first “kinetic” retaliation to a cyber attack; however it’s probably the first one to be openly acknowledged by either of the parties involves. Schneier’s observation that cyberwarfare is an equaliser is correct and it’s exactly why a savvy nation-state would consider this kind of response… but let’s not forget that such cyberattacks are only as viable as they are because nation-states favour cyber-offense over cuber-defence in the first place: they’re interested in building 0-day weapons that they can use against their enemies (and their own citizens) and this entire approach runs counter to the idea of improving defensive security.