"Such an attack could set in motion a cycle of disease and food scarcity and lead to the complete breakdown of society in two years. Some 90% of the U.S. population could perish."
The massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took down Twitter, Netflix and other online services across much of the United States on Friday showed just how vulnerable our increasingly Internet-driven lives are. It was a little scary not being able to tweet for a few hours or re-watch episodes of Stranger Things and The Walking Dead. But as Halloween approaches and you ponder the stranger things that are genuine threats, experts suggest you think about a similar attack on the U.S. energy sector.
The World Energy Council’s Issues Monitor offers insight into what keeps chief executives, government ministers and experts awake at night globally. A key finding from the seventh annual report, is “the risk from cyber threats has moved up the agenda this year, specifically in North America and Europe.”
As with the attack last Friday, which was aided by hacked security cameras in people’s homes, a source of the problem is the machines and networks of the U.S. energy business. They are increasingly interconnected and digitized. That’s a great blessing, but it also increases the risk of a potentially devastating cyberattack.