Danger of Attacks on U.S. Electricity Grid
U.S. intelligence and cyber security experts have recently issued a strong cautionary message; there is a very real danger of foreign enemies attacking the U.S. electricity infrastructure and these attacks could result in the death of up to 90% of the U.S. population! Robert Lee – who worked at the National Security Agency and Pentagon Cyber Command for five years before founding the cybersecurity company Dragos Inc. – recently announced that his company is tracking eight different teams who are specifically targeting U.S. industrial networks. This announcement comes in the wake of the recently revealed detection of Russian hackers who used a common phishing scheme – tricking staffers into entering passwords – and thereby infiltrating hundreds of U.S. utilities, manufacturing plants and other facilities last year. Jonathan Homer, head of Homeland Security’s industrial control system analysis, announced that the hackers targeted mostly the energy sector but also nuclear, aviation and critical manufacturing. Officials said the hackers had the capability to cause mass blackouts but chose not to. Instead, the hackers appeared more focused on reconnaissance perhaps for use in future widespread attacks. A especially disturbing detail is that officials said it is not clear if more had been compromised since news of the attack was made public. This has many in the cybersecurity sector warning of possible attacks on the U.S. power grid.
Mass Casualties Would Result
Such an attack on the U.S. would likely result in casualties on a massive scale. Research shows a cyber-attack on the power grid that shuts off electricity could potentially leave millions of Americans without food, clean water, heating and/or air conditioning, access to health care, gasoline, money, and many more of the comforts we have come to depend on for our way of life. In fact, a Congressional report indicated such an attack could shut down the U.S. power grid indefinitely. That could lead to the deaths of up to 90 percent of all Americans within a year! Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, reported at a Congressional hearing on national security threats that “the United States is under attack. Under attack by entities that are using cyber to penetrate virtually every major action that takes place in the United States.” Coates frighteningly added that cyber weapons exist in the hands of not only countries such as Russia and China but also terrorists. Coats said, “While Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest cyber threats, other nation-states, terrorist organizations, transnational criminal organizations and other more capable groups and individuals use cyber operations to achieve strategic and objectives.”
Relevant Bible Passages
The Bible contains prophetic references that could be fulfilled by such an attack. For instance, Ezekiel 5:12, Zechariah 13:8-9 and Revelation 6:8. 9:15-18 predict a time when large portions of the world population being killed. While most commonly believe the events of Revelation 6:8 and 9:15-18 take place during the Great Tribulation, particularly interesting is that Zechariah 13:8-9 seems to indicate that 2/3 of the world population will perish before the beginning of the Great Tribulation. As such, the events that contribute to them may begin to unfold in the days leading up to the start of the Tribulation. Regardless of the exact timing of these events, since they are foretold by Scripture we believe they will come to pass. As such we need to use the time we have remaining to spread the Gospel as far as we can. Let us be in prayer that we can meet this goal so that as many as possible would be spared from these tragic end time events.