US is risking ‘APOCALYPSE with millions lining up for food & water’ if there’s a cyberattack on power grid, experts say

THE US is risking an “apocalypse” with millions lined up for basic needs if there is a cyberattack on the power grid, experts have warned.

Experts have been worried for years that the national power grid is vulnerable to cyberattacks from outside countries should they wish to target the US.

GettyPeople line up for water in Texas during blackouts in February[/caption]

GettyExperts are warning that the US is vulnerable to cyberattacks[/caption]

A study being carried out by researchers at Hudson Institute’s Quantum Alliance Initiative is looking into how destructive a hypothetical quantum cyberattack on the US power grid would be, and preliminary results are bleak, to say the least.

The early results suggest that the protection of the country’s power grids should be an urgent priority, much more so than it already is.

“The study’s preliminary results offer important clues as to the areas on which policymakers should focus, not only to secure our power grid from a large-scale quantum computer attack but also, in the event this were to be unsuccessful, to mitigate such an attack’s impact on our infrastructure, both in terms of economic and national security,” an introduction to the Hudson Institute’s study says.

The study authors gave an example of the disastrous effects when the power grid went down in Texas after a storm earlier this year.

“Millions without power; stores and banks shut down; vital services running on emergency generators, if at all; lines of hapless people awaiting food and water.

“The experience that the state of Texas underwent during February 2021 is only a preview of what we would all face should the United States’ ever-vulnerable energy grid be subject to a major cyberattack,” the study introduction says.

A task force within the US Department of Energy, the North American Energy Resiliency Model (NAERM), is already tasked with considering how to best protect the country’s energy grid from both natural disasters and terrorism or cyber assaults.

However, study authors warn that NAERM is focused on known, existing cyber threats and not on the possibility of quantum computer attacks.

“NAERM’s purview … encompasses only existing, conventional cyber threats and does not extend to quantum computer attacks, whose effects would be far more protracted and far worse than those of a conventional cyberattack,” the study says.

“Indeed, the ‘smarter’ a grid is, that is, the greater the extent to which it relies on computer supervision and control, the more vulnerable it would be to such an attack.”

The authors warn that a quantum computer attack could cause “catastrophic harm” to both the economy and society as a whole unless steps are taken now to mitigate the risk.

GettyCity workers hand out water in Houston in February during blackouts[/caption]