Full Black - Brad Thor [85]
“With power grids and power stations so dependent on the Internet, I would argue that losing the Internet to an army of hackers would have the same effect as an enemy turning off our electricity, either through widespread sabotage or with an electromagnetic pulse weapon.
“The Chinese military leaders who developed the unrestricted warfare plan explained that in the realm of low-intensity conflict, the vulnerabilities of the United States actually become exponentially more pronounced. In essence, there are multitudes of things that U.S. citizens believe are harmless that a clever enemy could turn against them and use to cripple them in a heartbeat.
“The blackout of 2003 hit eight U.S. states and parts of Canada. Not only was power generation and delivery affected, but so were the water supply, transportation, communication, industry, and the overall economy. There was also looting. The overall cost was estimated at between seven and ten billion dollars.
“The outage affected more than fifty-five million people and was the second most-widespread electrical blackout in history. And I’ll give you one guess who was behind it.”
“The Chinese,” said Harvath.
Nicholas nodded. “Forensic investigations showed that PLA-sponsored Chinese hackers, or crackers as they’re referred to, had hacked into a U.S. electrical power system network that controlled distribution to the Northeast and were mapping it. It has been privately alleged that they were leaving behind hidden, malicious software, known as Trojan horses, that could be activated at a later date, specifically in a time of unrestricted warfare, in order to knock American power systems offline. Where it went wrong, supposedly, was that while leaving the Trojans, some cracker or group of crackers accidentally activated theirs, causing the blackout.”
“You don’t believe that?”
“It’s possible that the crackers made a mistake. Subsequent investigations of networks across the United States showed widespread compromise of the nationwide electrical system by the Chinese. Trojans had been planted everywhere.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t the U.S. confront China over it?”
“These kinds of things are very difficult to prove. Senior government and intelligence officials didn’t want to rock the boat with China unless they could prove it beyond a doubt.”
Harvath shook his head. “People have no idea how dangerous that country is—our politicians included.”
“I agree,” replied Nicholas. “At least eleven people died because of the blackout, and it contributed to the fall of the Ontario government in a provincial election. And it only lasted a couple of days.
“The impact on national security was just as serious. Without power, critical systems used by the United States to detect illegal border crossings, port landings, and breaches of sensitive sites were all compromised. Even more disturbing was that the blackout was a neon sign for terrorists, if you will, pointing right at one of America’s greatest Achilles’ heels.”
“Makes me wonder if it really was a mistake by the Chinese, or a dry run.”
“Indeed. The only way to be sure of your hypothesis is to test it. If the 2003 blackout was a test, it was successful, but it exposed all the Trojans they had planted throughout the U.S. electrical system.”
“Unless that was intentional,” said Harvath. “If they triggered the 2003 blackout on purpose to see what would happen and how we would respond, they had to have known we’d do a comprehensive analysis of all of our networks to see how badly we