Increasing global tension and the rise of cyber warfare could lead to nuclear disaster, the United Nations has warned.

A comprehensive report by The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) paints a pessimistic picture of the threat the world faces.

“The lack of nuclear weapons use since Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot on its own be interpreted as evidence that the likelihood of a detonation event is minimal,” the report warns.

“While detonations have not occurred in such circumstances, the Cold War was replete with incidences of near-misses, false alarms, and accidents in and around nuclear weapons, even when we draw only from the limited information made available by nuclear-armed States.”

The threat has been increased by the growing automation of command and control weapon systems.