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A cyberattack could wreak destruction comparable to a nuclear weapon
People around the world may be worried about nuclear tensions rising, but I think they're missing the fact that a major cyberattack could be just as damaging—and hackers are already laying the groundwork.
With the U.S. and Russia pulling out of a key nuclear weapons pact—and beginning to develop new nuclear weapons—plus Iran tensions and North Korea again test-launching missiles, the global threat to civilization is high. Some fear a new nuclear arms race.
That threat is serious—but another could be as serious, and is less visible to the public. So far, most of the well-known hacking incidents, even those with foreign government backing, have done little more than steal data. Unfortunately, there are signs that hackers have placed malicious software inside U.S. power and water systems, where it's lying in wait, ready to be triggered. The U.S. military has also reportedly penetrated the computers that control Russian electrical systems.
As someone who studies cybersecurity and information warfare, I'm concerned that a cyberattack with widespread impact, an intrusion in one area that spreads to others or a combination of lots of smaller attacks, could cause significant damage, including mass injury and death rivaling the death toll of a nuclear weapon.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 22 2019, @04:28AM (1 child)
Electricians from all over the continent wouldn't help in case of a continent-wide failure? Is it in their contracts?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday August 22 2019, @10:15AM
Exactly. It was a matter of other utilities lending out their personnel for an emergency. Not likely to happen if the other utilities have similar emergencies at home. No doubt they -- the utilities or the industrial-scale electricians -- were well-paid.
At home, we also lost two hot-water radiators. We already had a regular plumbing company. As soon as we had electricity again we called the plumbers to come and turn the heat on properly and carefully, which they did, after disconnection the failed radiators. We used electrical heating to heat the house until the regular heating came on. I trekked to a hardware store and bought 9 kilowatts worth of space heaters (all they still had in stock) and struggled to find combinations of outlets that didn't blow fuses.
It was improvisation.
There were no replacement radiators available on the market. Several months later, the plumber called and told me they had found some discarded but functional radiators from somewhere in the southern U.S and they came and installed them.
I don't know what we would have done that winter (it gets cold in Montreal. Back then it usually got down to -40 degrees in January of February). Those temperatures are less common now, twenty years later.
-- hendrik