Posted on 09/13/2016 8:21:55 PM PDT by pboyington
What is cyber warfare and why should you care? That question was one that this writer asked himself many times. I thought that it had to do with someone stealing my personal identity. You know, opening a charge account in my name or emptying out my bank account. I, probably like many reading this, paid no attention to it until recently being hit with someone emptying out my bank account. And then, like the proverbial person who closes the gate after all of the horses have escaped, did I try to learn more about it.
While there are no easy answers to identity theft, this writer learned that cyber warfare is real, affects all of us in a myriad of ways, and is definitely something to know about. The first hint about cyber warfare came about during President Obama’s first term. In 2010 someone on the Obama staff leaked about the use of the Stuxnet worm to counter criticism about his inaction against Iran’s building of a nuclear bomb. Knowledge of the worm, and its usage was classified at the highest level; however, due to Obama’s falling popularity, the program was leaked to the Washington Post.
Until the leak, the Iranians had no knowledge that they were targeted. Afterwards, they were able to clear the worm and finally made rapid progress toward developing an atomic bomb. The breach in security was made to prop up Obama’s image. The end result of such an egregious treason was that the world is now a much more dangerous place. The stories all extolled about how tough the President was on Iran’s nuclear program. Of course, investigation later proved that Stuxnet was developed and put into use jointly between Israeli and U.S. Cyberwar agents under President Bush. Obama only took credit when it suited his political image at home.
The next hint came in 2014, when it was widely reported that North Korean cyber agents had attacked Sony Corporation because its movie unit was producing a film that was critical of North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un. That cyber attack destroyed data, and disabled Sony’s computer system. Cyber agents were also able to hack into the email system of all of Sony Pictures employees, including actors, actresses and department heads, including its CEO. North Korea leaked several embarrassing emails, leading to CEO, Amy Pascal’s ouster over emails which were deemed racially insensitive about President Obama. In all, over 170,000 internal Sony Pictures emails were published by WilkiLeaks.
It has been reported that over 100 million Americans’ personal data has been compromised, leading President Obama to say, “These cyber threats are among the most urgent dangers to America’s economic and national security.” Last fall Ted Koppel, of television’s “Nightline” fame, wrote a book titled “Lights Out,” where he examined the consequences of future cyber attacks on our nation’s power grid(s). After interviewing a number of people from both the power companies and defense sector, he concluded, “It is not a matter of if the cyberattacks will happen, it’s a matter of when it will take place.”
George Cotter, a retired NSA top tech executive who now writes on cyber threats, wrote in April 2015, “The nation has little or no chance of withstanding a major cyberattack on the North American electrical system. When such an attack occurs, make no mistake, there will be substantial loss of life and serious crippling of National Security capabilities.” FEMA’s Craig Fugate said, “It quickly becomes a matter of keeping as many people from dying as possible.”
According to Richard Clarke, in his book, “Cyber Wars: the next threat to national security and what to do about it,” he speculates that if America attacks a rogue state, like ISIS, it could counterattack by cutting all of the power to Chicago or Los Angeles. He went on to write that the U.S. is more vulnerable than other nations because it has connected so much vital infrastructure to the Internet: including; electric power, pipelines, airlines, railroads, distribution of consumer goods and contractor support of the military.
If the power grid or grids were to be shut down, we would immediately be in a crisis situation. We would have no electricity. Refrigeration would stop, making all of our perishable food items, in our houses and in the grocery stores, spoil. Trains would stop running, causing food shortages within a few days. The trucking industry is much smaller than it was only eight years ago, due to Obama regulations putting so many out of business, and they could not take up the slack. In many places, like Los Angeles and Chicago, water would stop flowing through our pipes. Banks would close, as would gas stations, drug stores, supermarkets and every service that we now take for granted.
Could Germany’s call for its citizens to be prepared by stockpiling food and water, followed by the Czech Republic and Swiss governments not only calling for the stockpiling of food and water, but asking its citizens to arm themselves, be because they already know how vulnerable they are? Could it be that they know something is about to happen? The sub- division that this writer lives in recently distributed a flyer about this very subject and called on residents to stockpile at least 55 to 185 gallons of water, as well as enough non-perishable food items to last up to three weeks. What do they know?
The homeowners’ association concluded by explaining that in ancient Egypt, Joseph (no not me) stored food for seven years and when famine finally came, many lives were saved; including that of his own family. It may be wise to judge what will happen in the future by what has happened in the past. While we become complacent with how things are, today we live in a very connected world that is very dangerous and totally unpredictable.
Though the intent is good, this article confuses cyberwar with personal ID theft. Two different animals, should be broken into two articles.
Cyber Warfare : if power grid down, personal information stolen, bank accounts hacked, internet down, etc.
"It has been reported that over 100 million Americans’ personal data has (already) been compromised"
How do you prepare / alternatives ?
Cash reserves, Life Lock, credit monitoring, food and water storage, medical billing theft, credit card callback verification ?
More likely, the breach in security was made because Obama wanted to help Iran develop nuclear weapons, as his actions since then have amply demonstrated.
Genset, water reserves, lots of guns, and liberal anti gun Mormon neighbor who has it coming!
Genset? Works fine until your tank runs dry. How long is that? Days? A week or two? If you have a large tank, how,do you prevent the fuel from deteriorating?
James Woolsey has just joined the Trump team as an advisor. EMP and electric grid security are important issues to him. I hope that Trump will be open to his suggestions.
It would not be that difficult to harden the grid against these attacks, and that is one function of the National Government that I would endorse because it is defending our country!
Glad author’s subdivision is encouraging some preparedness. Hard to estimate what people are doing privately, but I have house-sat for a couple neighbors...they are not prepared from what I saw when I went in pantry for pet food.
Key is getting everybody prepared on some level for an emergency—could be power outage, flood, tornado, quake or EMP...
Sadly, people in my area are very complacent and ill prepared...We practically never have outages, floods, tornadoes, or quakes, so people don’t prepare...
Last spring we actually had a 3-hour outage, and my neighbor did not even know where a flashlight was...
Identity theft and EMP preparedness are 2 separate concerns.
Everyone should have paper copies of important documents. Make copies of bank, stock, IRA info, etc.
Would need paper documents to prove accounts, etc.
I also have LifeLock—maybe that is a luxury...
Identity theft would be least of worries in an EMP or grid hack, tho a factor.
NO idea how would deal with billing in a catastrophic event...Would bill collectors find us LOL Eh who knows probably could.
Multi-fuel genset: gasoline/ natural gas/ diesel
gasoline with stabilizer
natural gas should last until supply in the line depletes out.
diesel in ground tank with stabilizer depends on how much land and what size tank you can afford (genset and vehicle usage)
Likewise. We had a water outage (turned out to be 3 hours) last spring. Everybody was in a panic. E-mails circulated like crazy. One person asked “How would they take baths to go to work or school?”.
I thought I’d be helpful (silly me) and suggest that everybody have water on hand for emergencies. Not one person responded. So when SHTF, they’re on their own. Sadly, so will I. Will need to get some barbed wirefigure out how to protect my two gardens.
Excellent post! Yes, I need to get off my ass and get Life Lock or something similar...anyone have any suggestions? Recommendations?
I believe that my solar bank will still work if the grid goes down by cyber attack...in fact, I am sure of it.
If you are really concerned abut medical records info security and privacy, you need to find an independent provider that uses paper charts (or electronic records that do not connect to the internet), self pay, preferably with cash if possible. If you have a conventional health insurance plan or have government insurance, your records are exposed potentially to thousands of insurance companies and government agencies even before any hacking has taken place. With the world becoming darker and crazier, can you trust these people? If you receive a controlled substance (opioids, sedatives etc.)your name and address will be on a state database and in the majority of those states, your information will be available to law enforcement WITHOUT a subpoena. Can you trust these people?
You have to believe that there are more than a few bureaucratic thugs at state and federal agencies busy cross referencing things like concealed carry lists with visits to psychiatric clinics and controlled substances databases.
I am so screwed.
Cash will be king and precious metals will be the emperor.
Life now is good for most folks, in a crash it will not be so good but many of the things we enjoy can be preserved. Roof top solar can provide electricity even if you have no money to pay an electric bill. Cellular technology will not likely go anywhere but prepaid plans will become the norm.
Food purchases could be problematic, just look at Venezuela.
You should have storage at home. Food will be available but it may be available only sporadically. If you don't have means to keep refrigerated food your options could become unattractive. Get a deep freeze and a means to keep it going for at least a couple hours a day.
Have a means to protect what you have and hide what you have from others, family will be the most important associations you will have.
The value of cash will fluctuate, likely in the wrong direction as the government prints more and more of it, it will be nearly worthless. Keep a good portion of your cash in pre-1964 coin, quarters, dimes and half dollars. They will always have value. While gold has a lot of value is worth violence to get, people will kill for it if they know you have it, be careful. Ammo will be a good barter tool and likely as good as money. If you have an opportunity to get ammo for a good price it doesn't matter that you don't have a gun that will shoot it. If ammo is scarce then guns will be cheap.
Organize your family to help hold what you have, be a survivor.
Good post.
There are fuel stabilizers that you mix in with your fuel supplies, before going into storage.
Gasoline fuel stabilizers are good for one winter season, long term gasoline storage is not a real good option. You can stabilize Diesel fuel for a longer period and diesel generators last much longer although they are more expensive.
If you do get a generator and want to use it for more than a few days get one that runs at the lowest possible RPM, preferably 1800 or less. These low RPM diesel engines can run for years with little more than oil and filter changes.
One of the problems with diesel fuel is algae growth but a good filter will keep it from contaminating your system. Diesel also provides more power per gallon. If you are half way handy with tools get an engine from India, it will require a lot of clean up work but will be inexpensive. The Chinese make some good inexpensive generators. Figure about double the horsepower to wattage. 30 hp for 15KW for instance.
I know it will sound crazy to most people but I personally recommend getting a battery backup for whatever kind of electric backup you have. If you don’t intend to have air conditioning you don’t need a lot. You could likely recondition a used fork lift truck battery that would give you at least a couple days storage and then charge it with only 3 or 4 hours with your generator. I’m not talking about a little 5KW generator but at least 15KW and a good 100 amp charger. Know that even a really good choice is going to use 1/2 to 1 gallon of fuel per hour. You want to make sure you are always at full load to get best economy. This is where the battery can be a big help. Two or three gallons every couple of days should be doable.
The feeling of security this will provide you is worth the cost. If you ever have a storm or the economy crashes you will be glad you did, so will all of your family that comes to live with you.
Enough cash to pay for essentials for at least a month. Also useful if there’s a disaster and you need to run, and the credit systems are down. We’ve been in ice storms where all the antennas for credit/debit card verification were down, but I could still buy milk, diapers and wipes with a $20.
At least one other financial institution like a credit union from which you can pay bills, withdraw cash, even if the main one you work with is breached or frozen your account. We had to rely on this when Bank of America saw several online bill pays and transactions I did in one sit down session as suspicious and froze everything - not even fraud, but now locked out until they were happy we proved that it wasn’t.
Several weeks of food and water in case services are disrupted, whether hack attack or major snowstorm.
All of the account and financial information printed off in a secure place, so that you find yourself unable to access anything on a second computer in case the first is hit by malware or ransomware.
Check all accounts at least weekly for anything unusual, usually reconcile after every update for purchases/sales.
Don’t bother with Lifelock or credit monitoring, they take too long to find anything compared to my vigilance. I’ve reported suspicious stuff the day it was pending and had to wait for the bank to open to talk to someone to deal with it.
f the world crashes all the stolen data will be useless.
Cash will be king and precious metals will be the emperor.
Life now is good for most folks, in a crash it will not be so good but many of the things we enjoy can be preserved. Roof top solar can provide electricity even if you have no money to pay an electric bill. Cellular technology will not likely go anywhere but prepaid plans will become the norm.
Food purchases could be problematic, just look at Venezuela.
You should have storage at home. Food will be available but it may be available only sporadically. If you don’t have means to keep refrigerated food your options could become unattractive. Get a deep freeze and a means to keep it going for at least a couple hours a day.
Have a means to protect what you have and hide what you have from others, family will be the most important associations you will have.
The value of cash will fluctuate, likely in the wrong direction as the government prints more and more of it, it will be nearly worthless. Keep a good portion of your cash in pre-1964 coin, quarters, dimes and half dollars. They will always have value. While gold has a lot of value is worth violence to get, people will kill for it if they know you have it, be careful. Ammo will be a good barter tool and likely as good as money. If you have an opportunity to get ammo for a good price it doesn’t matter that you don’t have a gun that will shoot it. If ammo is scarce then guns will be cheap.
Organize your family to help hold what you have, be a survivor.
I agree that stolen data becomes useless in a really bad SHTF scenario. I suspect that it would be important to be able to prove/retain ownership of property at least for a period of time...
Cash may be king for a while...same for Gold being Emperor ...
I wonder tho should things go really south, would we move to a bartering/trading economy?
I am speculating that things like packaged food, first aid supplies, OTC medicines, alcohol, cigarettes, grill lighters, etc. could become very valuable.
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