A cyber attack?

"Hopefully our government is more prepared for this than they are letting on to. Hopefully. For it they are not, we are literally living on the edge."   

Mankind sure invests a lot of time and money in how to make someone else's life miserable. I know, the USA is not immune from this charge. Be it conventional war, nuclear war, an EMP strike, biological warfare, chemical warfare, or cyber warfare, they are all designed and meant to hurt or kill their fellow humans someplace on planet Earth.

Last week we had three major cities experience a problem with their electrical grid, all about the same time. Coincidence? Maybe. That is possible, although highly improbably. Was it some kind of limited cyber attack? That is more likely. But I think it might have been something even more ominous. A test. A probe. Something that could portend an attack much deeper and more widespread. An attack which could prove deadly instead of just a minor inconvenience.

There are some who believe hackers from another country (or terror group) might have already planted something terrible in the code for our power grid. Some kind of "sleeper" malicious code which when triggered, could shut down the grid for a long, long time. It is not a comforting thought, knowing that something as essential as our electric grid could be such a huge and tempting target.

What is the most frustrating to me, is simply this. We have had the know-how to make our electric grid stout, smart and more impervious to cyber intrusion for a long time. We have had the know-how - but not the will. If estimates are correct, that an EMP event could cause the death of up to 90% of our population within one year, why in the world has this not been a higher national priority? We have known about the effects of EMP since we tested nukes in the 1940's. And we have known an EMP has been part of the Soviet order of battle since the 1980's. So what gives?

Not to be gloomy and doomy on such a beautiful spring day, but I believe we have minimized the effect of an all out cyber attack on this country for way too long. An all out cyber attack, done correctly, could not only cripple our grid, but also our financial systems, our transportation system, and our healthcare system. And who knows what else. It would be a nightmare like we have never experienced before. 

Hopefully our government is more prepared for this than they are letting on to. Hopefully. For it they are not, we are literally living on the edge.