US May Face Apocalypse Soon If We Don't Harden Our Infrastructure

BY MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT B. NEWMAN, JR., USAF (RETIRED)   /  FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS

It seems like everyone is warning that WannaCry – the ransomeware virus that attacked computers around the world last month – is a harbinger of things to come. Commentators and newspapers everywhere have sounded the alarm that this worldwide cyberattack might be a “dry run” for a more devastating assault. If that happens, it will be another example of humanity’s Pollyannaish view of many modern threats that are too inconvenient or challenging to face, yet pose real dangers to our country’s well-being.

The interconnectedness of modern society – and its 100 percent reliance on electricity to function – puts mankind at the mercy to these types of events, which have only recently come to our attention. Our nation’s complex and interconnected infrastructure makes us vulnerable to not only cyberattacks, but other natural disasters and manmade attacks that can target our aging infrastructure and bring the United States to its knees without firing a shot.

Some have argued that our country’s greatest threat is our aging infrastructure. It is modern America’s Achilles heel.

The American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Infrastructure Report Card gives American infrastructure a grade of D+. And yet today’s digital society is dependent on this infrastructure to sustain the necessities and conveniences that we’ve come to demand – and upon which our very lives depend.

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If we are to survive a future mega-disaster, we must strengthen our infrastructure to achieve resiliency – the capacity to recover quickly from an event that significantly damages or incapacitates a critical infrastructure sector vital to the normal functioning of society.

An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that is generated from a nuclear detonation or from a solar flare on the surface of the sun, can have the same effect as a successful cyber attack by knocking out the power to our homes and businesses.

An earthquake along the New Madrid Fault centered near Memphis or a physical attack such as the one that occurred against a power substation in Metcalf, Calif., in 2013 could also damage critical infrastructure so badly that it could take months or even years to repair.

America has for many years ignored modernizing our infrastructure, which makes repairing it a challenging goal, but one that is achievable and vitally important to the future of our country.

President Trump’s $1 trillion pledge to overhaul America’s aging infrastructure could be the place to begin by requiring new structures to be functionally resilient to disaster or attack, thus enabling these important facilities to continue to perform the functions for which they were built.

We have no choice; our nation must begin this journey. To be successful and timely, it will take a “whole of nation” approach and leadership at the highest level to bring together both private and public sectors to accomplish this goal. It is ambitious, but not beyond our reach.

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Here are three proposals that can jumpstart the building of resiliency into our infrastructure and will yield immediate results that will protect infrastructure:

(1) Cyber protection. I propose a “Cyber Sarbanes-Oxley” bill that would require senior management of publicly traded companies to certify the security of their networks to a high standard and require the highest levels of cyber protection for all companies doing business with the U.S. government. (The Department of Defense has instituted such a policy with a deadline for compliance by December 2017.)

(2) Protect the electric grid. Cyber protection is critically important and should be mandated to ensure power is produced and delivered to our citizens and our military. (Although some military installations are beginning to move off the public grid, most of bases still get their power from public utilities.) In addition, the federal government should fund, from national security programs, the installation of EMP protection to power, communications, water, and wastewater facilities – arguably the most important facilities needed to sustain life in our modern society. Experts have said that we can protect a substantial part of the nation’s power grid for around $2 billion, about the same amount of foreign aid that we sent to Pakistan each year.

(3) State and local governments should promote Community Resiliency Centers. These centers can ensure state and local governments are able to deliver essential services and communicate with their citizens during a long-term disaster. They can be developed as public private partnerships to facilitate the participation of everyone who lives in the community. The centers can have many other benefits during normal operations, such as education and water protection and alternative power generation.

America, like all modern nations, is vulnerable to events that can cripple our critical infrastructure. Governments at all levels – and our citizens – need to take steps now to ensure our way of life is protected or we may soon find ourselves living in 1850 again.

A version of this piece also appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Major General Robert B. Newman, Jr., USAF (retired), has over thirty years of business, military, and homeland security expertise in both government and private sectors in the fields of infrastructure protection, financial services, energy, and information security.  As Senior Vice President and Director of Strategic Partnerships for Sera-Brynn,  Mr. Newman assists the CEO with the company’s strategic planning effort and is responsible for the strategic marketing and industry awareness programs.  He works with professionals both in and out of the information security field to develop new partnerships to expand the company’s client base and with other senior leaders in the company to develop new products and analyze their impact on the company’s clients and the market.

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