If the power grid goes down in November, will you be ready?

reply to post by defcon5


Im not sure.

Im gonna look and see what I can find out though.

Heres what the source I posted earlier said.

Even more alarming, Panetta said, was an attack two months ago in which a sophisticated virus called Shamoon infected computers at the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, and then Ras Gas of Qatar. More than 30,000 Aramco computers were rendered useless, and had to be replaced, he said.

‘Garbage Data’

“Shamoon included a routine called a ‘wiper,’ coded to self-execute,” he said. “This routine replaced crucial system files with an image of a burning U.S. flag. It also put additional ‘garbage’ data that overwrote all the real data on the machine.”

Aramco said the attack had no significant impact on its administrative operations and that it had reinforced its network security systems, according to a statement posted on the company’s website last month.

Panetta discussed specific attacks whose details were declassified to allow public disclosure because cyber threats have become as serious as conventional and nuclear threats, a senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Read more: 'Shamoon' Virus Most Destructive Yet for Private Sector, Panetta Says

Originally posted by thehoneycomb
reply to post by Brentnauer

 

I shared with you what I know.

Me I am taking the warning seriously, of course I need to do some things to help verify. But aside from that Im taking whatever cards and comics I have that I collected as a child and selling them. Ill probably sell all the other stuff I dont need if this story checks out and invest in some old coins. Im gonna stock some more ammo and this might sound silly but candy and stuff like that.

please dont sell your comics.... You're gonna NEED them....


for Toilette paper .....

reply to post by defcon5


exactly, and you would have the digital fingerprint of who ever tried. You would then spend more time prepping for manual operations than actually switching over to them. If it was only a local outage they would go on almost immediately. If it was like half the country, they would take longer to prepare, but ultimately they would just run manually like they did before the advent of sophisticated computer systems.

More people would go to work the next day, that is all. That is of course if they still could not figure out the software problem. If they did, they would just wipe and reinstall all software.

reply to post by darrman


I have some TP already.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by thehoneycomb

 

So your saying that they have a virus that can phyiscally destroy hardware then?
Because that would be a first (outside of the printer overheating one).
You dont have to pitch expensive computer systems because they get a virus, you just erase and reinstall them.

Try updating your firmware and pulling the plug halfway through the install.. it can permanently destroy a computer.

reply to post by Socrato


I should emphasize this part shouldn't I?

“Shamoon included a routine called a ‘wiper,’ coded to self-execute,” he said. “This routine replaced crucial system files with an image of a burning U.S. flag. It also put additional ‘garbage’ data that overwrote all the real data on the machine.”

reply to post by Socrato


If you erase the BIOS, you can disable a computer, but I know of no viruses that can do that ATM.
Even still, you can replace the bios chip, and bios chips can be re-burned.

My guess is you saw the CNN report yesterday saying we could be cyber attacked and you made this thread.

Oddly enough, I've recently seen a rumor like this in a comments section or two.

Iran's game plan for a war with Israel involves keeping the US on the sidelines as long as possible. They will do all they can to avoid bringing the US into a war. Thus Iran has no motive for any sort of attack on US civilians BEFORE the US gets involved in a war with Israel.

Even after a war began, it seems like a pointless waste of manpower resources for Iran at best: those same hackers would obviously be better used to hack US and Israeli drones and other military vehicles, field gear, bases, and maybe even missiles, etc. And at worst it could create strong enough support for using nuclear weapons on them that it'd actually be an option.

In the US, 9/11 has made the idea of a 'false flag' attack common knowledge. Even the people who don't believe 9/11 was a false flag attack have talked about it and considered the possibility. Using one to start a war with Iran could have the double whammy of making even the faithful doubt not only that Iran was involved in an attack, but that 9/11 was not a false flag.

reply to post by thehoneycomb
it was on the news. This is not anyting new.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by thehoneycomb

 

So your saying that they have a virus that can phyiscally destroy hardware then?
Because that would be a first (outside of the printer overheating one).
You dont have to pitch expensive computer systems because they get a virus, you just erase and reinstall them.

Actually there are viruses that can kill your cpu this is done by overvolting and shutting down cooling system.. Also they can wipe the bios chip which means either replace the chip or toss the board.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by Socrato

 

If you erase the BIOS, you can disable a computer, but I know of no viruses that can do that ATM.
Even still, you can replace the bios chip, and bios chips can be re-burned.

The w95.CIH virus also known as the Chernobyl virus was good for wiping bios.

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
no, you need to physically be there, in many locations to shut things down.

There is such a thing as a manual switch to vital and important infrastructure.

You could try, and maybe succeed in part, but then they just pull the plug and switch everything to manual operation.

You would need a physical attack, and short of foreign troops on our soil, it could not happen.

Or GOD. I have a pretty warm feeling that our country (and other countries) have prepared for this type of future scenario, atleast to the degree that we could not be devastated by such an attack.

Originally posted by thehoneycomb
I am not speaking of a EMP, but a cyber-security attack, that attacks computer systems and spreads through internet connections (wifi etc) and the internet.

I dont really have a grasp on how this would work exactly, but lets just say, not an EMP a cyber attack from Iran.

How it could work is if a hacker was able to assemble enough computing power to break through the firewall on the servers that run the Grid. Once root access is granted, the hacker could then do his business, implant a worm, or trojan, or a bad virus that could in fact destroy the server hard drives. I worked on a machine a few weeks ago that something nasty destroyed the MBR and three sectors of the drive beginning at 0. Had to replace the drive, it was locked up.

That being said, I believe TPTB are planning to shut down the grid and blame the Iranians, as a pretext to war. But that is just my opinion.

I grew up in mining towns, and we had no electrical power until 1964. Since then, I have experienced many power outages, the most recent just a few months ago. Thankfully we had not yet filled the freezer, and ice was still available. One can survive, it just isn't easy.

People think they are ready for things ... but then when they happen they find out that they aren't really. No one seems to understand the full impact of what these kinds of things will cause. Like no more medicine .. society melt down .. no police or fire .. death by simple infection because no meds or hospitals running .. etc etc ... Eyeglasses broken? Too bad, you now can't see because there are no glasses that can be made. Good luck surviving without being able to see well in a chaotic world ... etc etc

Thank you for the link to the article.

This is the bit that interested me.

(Quote)
'In recent weeks, he said, some large U.S. financial institutions were hit by attacks that delayed or disrupted services on customer websites. While this tactic, called a Distributed Denial of Service attack, isn’t new, the scale and speed of the bank assaults, which continued this week, were unprecedented, he said'. (End Quote)

Friday 5th Oct we had three banks experience 'technical faults' that denied access to atm's internet banking and accounts in branches in the UK. Essentially customers could not access funds or pay bills. Admittedly it was only for a couple of hours but that was enough to create confusion and chaos for a while. The three banks affected are in no way linked. Its not unusual to experience system problems from time to time but for three banks to experience them at the same time is interesting and - to me - stretches the bounds of being merely coincidental.

Imagine how damaging it would be if it were for longer. The Natwest scenario but on a bigger scale and hitting a larger slice of the population.

S

Replying to some posts. You could kill anything with a ARM chip in it you just need to work out what kinda cycle would make it hot to melt it.

Also you can recover bad flashed hardware you just need to know how J-Tag it usually has busy box installed.
if no J-tag pin outs you need to find the arm chips manual and find out U-ART/Serial Access leg outs bit technical but possible as far I have read.

Also as for bios chips I have a wilam chip programmer that I can recover a bad flash with it.

Also with them hard drives you had with funny boot records could be possibly a faulty PCB, find same make and model drive and replace board.


So this was heard thru what sources? media, friend, friend of a friend, someone one in a chat room/social media?

Also these DoS attacks you could be helping in. if you use torrents sometimes the person who uploads the torrent will also put a tracker link that is the targeted website they want to DoS they do this with popular torrents.
the results the downloader of the torrent would have no clue they was partaking in a DoS attack.

Just a heads up for those that use torrents.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by Socrato

 

If you erase the BIOS, you can disable a computer, but I know of no viruses that can do that ATM.
Even still, you can replace the bios chip, and bios chips can be re-burned.

Yes you can get a virus in the bios. I was reading about a new one recently soz i cannot remember the name.. Even if you flash the bios it still remains. It can hide in the RAM and on things like the DVD drive...

One of the more memorable BIOS targeting viruses was known as the CIH virus (1999). This particular virus caused tremendous damage and was named as one of the world's top ten viruses by a number of security organizations. We recently found another BIOS virus infection spreading globally named Rootkit.Win32.Mybios.a. This virus is usually bundled with game software, tricking users into turning off their security software and subsequently attacking the BIOS, MBR (master boot record) , and windows system files.

prosecure.netgear.com...

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by Socrato

 

If you erase the BIOS, you can disable a computer, but I know of no viruses that can do that ATM.
Even still, you can replace the bios chip, and bios chips can be re-burned.

Yes you can get a virus in the bios. I was reading about a new one recently soz i cannot remember the name.. Even if you flash the bios it still remains. It can hide in the RAM and on things like the DVD drive...

One of the more memorable BIOS targeting viruses was known as the CIH virus (1999). This particular virus caused tremendous damage and was named as one of the world's top ten viruses by a number of security organizations. We recently found another BIOS virus infection spreading globally named Rootkit.Win32.Mybios.a. This virus is usually bundled with game software, tricking users into turning off their security software and subsequently attacking the BIOS, MBR (master boot record) , and windows system files.

prosecure.netgear.com...

If something big came along and took out the power for the entire US people would adjust. Several years ago a hurricane took out power to our whole area for a month, longer in some places. The first few days were a lot of hard work- getting set up in a different way- but once everyone got their ducks in a row things were fine. Within a few days gas stations, grocery stores, even Walmart were up and running on generators. The only difference were the businesses kept shorter hours.

The biggest problems in the first few days were looters, but it only took a few days for neighborhoods to form their own patrols and the looters disappeared. People helped each other out. Another big problem (that continued long after power was restored) was that a lot of couple relationships bit the dust. Without the niceties we are accustomed to people's true personalities emerge- and they are not always who you thought they were. Therefore the divorce rate skyrocketed.

It wouldn't bother me or anyone I am close to if the power disappeared. It would be difficult at first, but people are more resilient than most give them credit for. We lived for thousands of years without electricity before- we can do so again!