Imagine all of a sudden one day, across the entire country, everyone’s  bank account is emptied, business and government computers become inaccessible, power grids shut down, no internet or communications, our defense weapons and power plants become inoperative, cars stop dead in the street, and planes and trains become unsafe to use. How hard would it then be for another country to just walk in and take over or even remain anonymous demanding hundreds of billions in ransom to restore?   With world tension on the rise and nuclear weapons not an option without counter strikes that would destroy the planet, will the next major confrontation be digital?

The news is more frequently reporting business and government hacks where computers are encrypted and data held hostage until the company forks over a ransom.  The relativity small amounts of ransoms indicate they are most likely done by lone basement hackers. Now imagine a foreign country with thousands of highly trained computer experts spending  years secretly hacking into another country’s computers, preparing for a sudden digital Pearl Harbour type attack. 

At first it may sound far fetched but consider the following. Keystroke recording spyware can already secretly record every key pushed on your computer including user name and passwords to your accounts.  Spyware able to secretly track and turn on cell phone microphones and cameras has also exists not to mention Google Home and Alexia that if hacked can allow someone to listen to conversations undetected.  The list of possibilities goes as far as our imaginations.  Hacking of companies like OnStar would allow someone to activate the antitheft software on all their vehicles and shut them down.  It could take years to fix the damage.  Boeing’s Max 8 aircraft have been grounded for months with software problems and they weren’t even attacked with a virus.

Countries like Canada being digitally attacked by another country may at first sound ridicules but consider this, we buy items from countries that are made, assembled, shipped from the other side of the world and sold for a profit here at $1.25.  These third-world conditions combined with increasing populations and ever-dwindling resources and food are slowly turning these countries into hungry sharks.  Canada with its abundance of natural resources, fertile land and wealth combined with complacency when it comes to peace and trust make it the perfect unsuspecting seal. 

Now is the time to improve and tighten up our cybersecurity as well as backing up the countries critical systems with computers on offline sterile closed loops.

Dave Lister

listerlogic.com