Cybersecurity Threats On the Horizon

It doesn't take a Nostradamus to forecast many critical cybersecurity threats are looming on the horizon. Sad to say, what's bad for society is a boon in the area of employment for us, the Good Guys. Many talented people are needed to combat these dangers, because cybersecurity is a nascent industry still in diapers, and AI isn't coming to the rescue anytime soon, no matter what some out-of-touch critics say.

I hope companies can prepare enough to avoid the worst from happening, but I’m not all that optimistic they’ll be able to pull it off. For every hacker that gets taken down by the FBI, it seems like ten more spring up to take their place. Here are a Dirty Dozen of the weakest areas I believe need shoring up immediately:

1)?Food distribution supply chains; I put this first on the list as starvation is the scenario I dislike the most, because I really, really, love to eat. Most Americans don’t stockpile food, and a food distribution supply chain disruption will create mass chaos. My guess is it'll be even worse than the Charmin Pandemic Panic of 2020.

2)?Nuclear weapons security; At least 10 countries in the world are known to possess nuclear weapons. Some don't have the best controls in place, and if terrorists can hack into their sites from remote, that's the stuff of my nightmares.

3)?Air traffic control tower jamming; If air traffic control operations for major airports are rendered inoperable, pilots would have to fly blind, avoid mid-air crashes, then land their planes without help from the control tower. I'm no pilot, but I'm pretty sure that's not an easy act to pull off, even for Tom Hanks.

4)?Nuclear power plant takeovers; Seeking a huge ransom payday, hackers could accidentally cause a meltdown at a nuclear plant. Control of nuclear systems isn't something that can be learned from a book online, it takes years of hands-on experience. There are currently 55 nuclear power plants in America, located in 28 different states, with a combined total of 93 nuclear reactors. I live near one of them, and I break into a sweat just thinking about a gang of nutjobs even attempting something that audacious.

5)?Dam sabotage; Dams release pressure by opening spillways to allow the controlled flow of water, but if hackers blocked the spillways, an enormous buildup of water pressure could cause a dam to fail. There are 84,000 dams in America, and most have people living close to them, so if there's a rupture that's a Hellish scenario.

6)?Reservoir sabotage; We need reservoirs for drinking water, irrigation, and to flush our toilets. Without water, fires could rage out of control, and destroy entire sections of a city.?

7)?Hospitals and emergency medical care hacking; In 2020, at least 235 American hospitals paid hackers over $100 million in ransom money. Hospital Emergency Rooms have already been forced to turn away ambulances carrying sick or dying patients because they had no way to provide them with medical care.

8)?Power and Utility Damage; A February 2022 non-hacker-related internal operations power failure in Texas created an electrical blackout. The loss of electrical power resulted in the freezing death of at least 210 people. Hackers could attempt something similar for ransom because they're heartless bastards, and with consequences just as devastating.

9)?Economic chaos; Pop Quiz Question - What if hackers shut down the New York Stock Exchange in an extortion attempt? The value of shares trading hands daily on the NYSE is upwards of $5 trillion, per the Bank of International Settlements. An extended outage due to a data breach could trigger a global economic collapse far worse than any we've seen before.

10)?Oil, gasoline, and natural resource disruptions; The effect of the Colonial Pipeline breach was still felt nationwide long after it was over, and the damage was created all for a measly ransom request of $4.4 million from a Russian cybercrime group.

11)?Mass transportation; If they got in, hackers could stop trains, mess with the street lights in a city, and cause movie-type spectacular crashes. I really enjoyed "Bullet Train", I just don't want to see one flying off the tracks and coming at me.

12) Identity theft; Thousands of people are the victims of identity theft every single day, and I’ve been one of them. The boat has sailed for me personally because of weak corporate cybersecurity practices, and I'm now forced to subscribe to three different credit monitoring services, which I have to pay for out of my own pocket. Thanks for nothing, Equifax!