The anticipated release of the new game "Watch Dogs" is making internet security folks.

Watch Dogs is an open world stealth game which allows the player to hack various computer systems in a city and reconfigure machines to do their bidding.

Cyber center technical lead at Thales, Kevin Wood, said his staff were terrified by the possibility that hacking was about to go mainstream. "The tagline of this game is 'hacking is our weapon'. You can buy it for £40 and then hack the infrastructure of a city state to achieve your aims.

"It will raise awareness of hacking. I'm not saying players will leave the game able to breach serious defences, but it's a game, so hacking might become a game too."

Due to be released at the same time as the new Playstation 4, shares in Ubisoft slumped by 26 per cent after it announced that the release of Watch Dogs had been delayed.