Should we worry about an attack on the Untied States’ electrical infrastructure? Ted Koppel says “very much so” in his book: Lights Out. You probably better know Mr. Koppel as the longtime anchorman on ABC News and Nightline. In Lights Out he puts on his old school journalist hat and puts together an in depth investigation of the vulnerability of the US electrical infrastructure and effects of a cyber attack on it.
The book is divided in three parts. The first part looks at the vulnerabilities of the infrastructure. It’s old. It’s connected. Hackers can get at it and cause problems. He does not dive deep into the nuts and bolts. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s too complicated, he doesn’t completely understand the vulnerabilities, or he does not want the book to be a manifesto on how to structure an attack. Personally, I think it’s a bit of all three.
The second part covers how prepared the government is to handle a prolonged loss of part of the electrical grid. No surprise; It’s not prepared.
He wraps up the book with a look at what individual citizens are doing. He spends a long time looking at the Mormon church. Part of the church’s dogma is to have its members be prepared for a long period of self-reliance. Church members are taught to stockpile food in their homes. The central church organization has a large infrastructure to stockpile and distribute food.
He spends some time with survivalists, but dismisses some of their tin-foil hat conspiracies. The truth is that cities can only survive for a few days without electricity. The lack of food stockpiles, water supply and waste disposal will quickly cause problems.
Given the compliance focus on cybersecurity, I thought this might be an interesting book to read when the publisher offered me a copy for review.
In the first section on vulnerability, you guess what he says he found. It’s just a matter of “when” there is an attack on the electrical infrastructure, not “if.” In part he blames federalism, regulation, and de-regulation on the situation. There is no one regulatory body in place to impose cybersecurity standards. Ownership of the infrastructure is split into thousands of companies, with different business models and different abilities to spend the time and money needed thwart a cyber attack.
I found the second section of the book to be the better of the three. It’s also the part where Mr. Koppel is able to use his star power and connection to meet with current and former government officials who would be responsible for dealing with an attack like this.
You can buy a copy of Lights Out at your favorite bookstore or from Amazon.com