As part of a national alert that is overdue and needed, I will produce a special event, a Webinar to discuss survival techniques for a cyberattack on our electric grid. After reading this blog warning, if you want to attend, click “The First Cyber War Attack On The U. S.” for information.
As of this date, no group, including the U. S. government, save the Mormon Church, has prepared a self-empowered defense against this terminal threat. Critical U. S. defense capabilities such as the CIA are not available because the U. S. has not adapted to the threat of a devastating cyberattack invasion by Russia, Iran or North Korea, to name a few.
“More than fifty years as a reporter, all too often as a war correspondent, have ingrained in me a healthy respect for the law of unintended consequences,” author Ted Koppel explained.
You don’t need 50 years of journalism experience to know how real the threat is that is exposed by Ted Koppel’s thorough investigative reporting and the potential threat of an attack on the U. S. electric grid in his new blockbuster book “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving The Attack,” (Crown Publishers, NY) and how imminent it may be.
Throughout his two-year investigation, Koppel raised this concern to numerous federal officials. When he spoke to Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security "pointed out a bunch of white binders in his office and said, 'I'm sure there's a plan out there somewhere.'"
"Don't you think it's smart to get that plan out to the public before there is a massive break in electrical power?'," Koppel asked. "And he (Johnson) sadly explained, 'Look, I mean this is a relatively simple thing, all you need is a battery-powered radio.'"
Although then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of a "cyber Pearl Harbor" during a Senate hearing in 2012, and the president has also warned of it in two State of the Union addresses, there is still no sense of urgency in the government.
Koppel contends the power grid is vulnerable to a cyberattack. He points to a lack of industry security standards, how power companies are dependent on one another to buy and transmit electricity and how hardly anyone seems capable of keeping determined hackers out of a computer.
"Lights Out" reports that Russia and China have the technological ability to hack the U.S. power grid and have already penetrated it with crippling pre-attach devices, but the book also points out that such an attack would constitute an act of war or be part of warfare itself. Cyberattack threats from Russia are already numerous.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has gigantic, strategically located storehouses filled with supplies. I hope that one day African Americans will share that kind of required self-empowerment vision.
Click “The First Cyberwar Attack On The U. S.” for information on my webinar to discuss survival techniques.
