And while currently, a hacking group with alleged ties to the Russian government (of course!) is being blamed, we take a look here at why those attempting the hacking are more likely tied to North Korea (or those trying to blame a future false flag upon them).
And while we certainly understand the concern about North Korea's nuclear program, especially after analysts recently spotted ominous cone-like tips indicating their new long-range missile could avoid US interceptors while launching multiple warheads, as we read in this story from Paul Bremmer over at WND, an EMP or cyber attack that takes down our electrical grid for a lengthy period of time will be much more devastating to America overall than one successful nuclear weapons attack.
While a successful nuclear weapons attack upon a US city would cause fear throughout the nation and absolute devastation to the city/suburban areas struck, a cyber attack that took down our electrical grid could take down our entire nation for a considerable lengthy period of time would cause much greater long-term damage. From the WND story:
While most analysts agree North Korea does not yet have a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental U.S., energy expert Jeffrey Yago said it’s clear North Korea does have the technology to create an EMP weapon and detonate it over the center of the United States. An EMP weapon, he said, is easier to make and would be more devastating than a nuclear bomb.
“The EMP weapon, if it’s detonated high above the United States, can cause havoc from one end of the coast to the other, whereas a surface nuclear bomb would certainly be devastating to an area, like a city, but it would be limited to that geographic area, whereas the damage from an EMP could last up to a year and affect the entire country,” Yago said.
An EMP weapon would have the power to knock out the U.S. electrical grid, likely causing chaos among the population. Lights would go off, computers and televisions would shut down and cell phones would go dark once their batteries ran out. All electronic appliances that plug into power outlets would cease to operate. Water and gasoline could not be pumped, causing plumbing and vehicular transportation to shut down. Food could no longer be delivered to stores. Credit card readers and cash registers would not work.
Yago believes the grid will go down at some point, whether it’s from a North Korean EMP attack, a computer hack or a combination of the two. He worries about the widespread devastation it will cause, especially in major cities, if Americans choose to rely on the government and fail to take their own steps to prepare.
“The kinds of things that keep me up at night are not so much the power going out, but the long-term effects that would have on the population,” he warned.
While President Trump recently labeled North Korea a menace and problem that needed to be solved while he was at the G-20 summit, there's a very good reason why so many military experts have warned that a war with North Korea would be unlike any way that American fighters had seen in a long time.
The danger of the malware is that it can automatically trip the breakers within a power system that keep the electrical lines from being overloaded. If one breaker is tripped, the load is shipped to another portion of the power grid. If enough are tripped, in the right places, it’s possible to create a cascading effect that will eventually overload the entire system, said Weatherford, who was formerly the chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the regulatory authority for North American utilities.
“In some cases, it could then take days to restart all the plants,” he said.
Two things stand out about the malware, dubbed “Industroyer” by the researchers — it’s an order of magnitude easier to use than previous programs and it wasn’t actually deployed to do any real damage, meaning whoever’s behind the December attack might simply have been testing the waters.
In other words, this malware can induce what’s often referred to as a cascading failure. This is what caused the massive blackout that occurred in the Northeastern US and Canada back in 2003. An overgrown tree branch in Ohio touched a power line, which caused that section of the grid to overload and shut down. The electricity had to be transferred to other power lines, which in turn also became overloaded.
This chain reaction continued until 55 million people were without power. Cascading failure is the perfect example of just how fragile our power grid can be. Because our grid is so interconnected, something really small can have a huge effect on the wider system. Though the power grid in the US isn’t as vulnerable to humble tree branches as it used to be, it’s still quite vulnerable to the type of malware that was used to shut down parts of the grid in Ukraine.
Short of outright conflict with a state adversary, several plausible scenarios in which the U.S. power grid would be subject to cyberattack need to be considered: Discrediting Operations. Given the importance of electricity to the daily lives of Americans, an adversary may see advantage in disrupting service to undermine public support for a U.S. administration at a politically sensitive time.
Might 'enemies of America within' take down our power grid, blaming it upon North Korea, to undermine President Trump? The CFR study also outlines for us why such a scenario could bring America a sudden Apocalypse while outlining for us some of the 'warning indicators' of a future mass attack, including smaller test runs prior to their 'end game'.
Besides the intrinsic importance of the power grid to a functioning U.S. society, all sixteen sectors of the U.S. economy deemed to make up the nation’s critical infrastructure rely on electricity. Disabling or otherwise interfering with the power grid in a significant way could thus seriously harm the United States.
Carrying out a cyberattack that successfully disrupts grid operations would be extremely difficult but not impossible. Such an attack would require months of planning, significant resources, and a team with a broad range of expertise. Although cyberattacks by terrorist and criminal organizations cannot be ruled out, the capabilities necessary to mount a major operation against the U.S. power grid make potential state adversaries the principal threat.
A series of warning indicators would likely foretell a cyberattack on the U.S. power grid. Potential indicators could include smaller test-run attacks outside the United States on systems that are used in the United States; intelligence collection that indicates an adversary is conducting reconnaissance or is in the planning stages; deterioration in relations leading to escalatory steps such as increased intelligence operations, hostile rhetoric, and recurring threats; and increased probing of electric sector networks and/or the implementation of malware that is detected by more sophisticated utilities.
A large-scale cyberattack on the U.S. power grid could inflict considerable damage. The 2003 Northeast Blackout left fifty million people without power for four days and caused economic losses between $4 billion and $10 billion. The Lloyd’s scenario estimates economic costs of $243 billion and a small rise in death rates as health and safety systems fail.
While darker scenarios envision scarcity of water and food, deterioration of sanitation, and a breakdown in security, leading to a societal collapse, it would be possible to mitigate the worst effects of the outage and have power restored to most areas within days. At this level of damage, the American public would likely demand a forceful response, which could reshape U.S. geopolitical interests for decades. Traditional military action, as opposed to a response in kind, would be likely.
In the 3rd video below we hear one opinion on what a war with North Korea might look like, and as General Mattis warns, such a war would be an outright bloody catastrope. In the 4th video below, we hear from Pastor Carl Gallups on why a North Korean war might play into Biblical prophecy with potential adversaries backing North Korea being China, Iran and even Russia should relations between the US and Russia once again deteriorate.
