That is essentially what happened!
The FBI asked researchers and university professors precisely this question. They then used the proposed attack vectors to formulate a plan to protect the nation.
This was all supposed to be done in secret. After all, we don’t want to “give the terrorists ideas.”
The reason I know about this at all is because someone found one such paper was accidentally published on a public FTP site alongside a bunch of non-classified government-funded research.
The content was horrifying. One professor came up with a laundry list of imaginative ways to end society… on a budget.