We are using technology more than ever before. Our personal and professional lives are increasingly dependent on digital mediation and online connection.
But the more networked and digitally dependent our society becomes, the more vulnerable we are to cyberattack. Indeed, ransomware attacks and other cyber crimes are rising dramatically.
Journalist Ted Koppel wrote about the scalating risks before us in his book, Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermatch, released in 2016. He joined Steve Paikin to discuss the pressing issue on this installment of The Agenda.
Former defense secretary of the United States Leon Panneta warned that the U.S. was vulnerable to a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” Is such an attack actually likely?
“The quick answer is yes, it could,” concludes Koppel. “Will it? All I can tell you is that the commander of CENTCOM, a General Lloyd Austin, told me, ‘It’s not a question of if. It’s just a question of when.’”
Such an attack that could target the power grid could have devastating effects that last as long as months.
“Well, you know, once you’re without electricity, if you live in an urban centre, you’re without the capability of heating or cooling your home. The water supply is going to stop in the sense that it requires pumps, which are powered by electricity, to get that water into the various apartment buildings and into the flats throughout the city. The worst part about that is not merely the fact that there wouldn’t be enough drinking water available, but also the fact that you don’t have the capability of disposing of human waste. Within a matter of just a few days, that becomes a major crisis.”
