My wife was watching the news this morning and wondered out loud what might happen if China or North Korea attacked our computer systems?

It’s a pretty scary thought when you think about it. I remember watching the Bruce Willis movie, “Live Free or Die Hard.”

The bad guy in that movie brings the whole US government crashing down by taking out transportation, financial & banking, and utilities — all run entirely by computers.

Would It Be That Hard?

We hear about computer hacking almost every day in this country. In fact, it’s so commonplace that unless we find ourselves victims of identity theft we really don’t think that much about it.

Experian, the credit reporting agency, was hacked in 2017 and 143 million Americans had their most sensitive information stolen.

That’s one third of the entire US population. Ho-Hum, who’s singing on The Voice tonight?

What Would Life Be Like After A Hack Attack?

Unless you had cash on hand you’d be in pretty bad shape. Credit or debit cards wouldn’t work, the banks would have to close to prevent runs on them. Plus, how would you prove you even had an account there?

Many people would probably not show up for work. Travel in major cities would be a nightmare with no traffic signals. No Uber either.

Secure facilities would no longer be secure. Air travel and train travel would cease.

Hospitals might not be affected as much since their systems are mostly internal but depending on where the information is kept could become a serious issue.

No court systems since those are all computerized. Police would have a hard time identifying anyone.

The military is almost entirely run on computer.

On the plus sign there would be no record of your debts or credit report. Anything stored in the cloud would be gone.

Unless systems were restored quickly crime would become rampant and food and water would become the new currency.

You wouldn’t even be able to buy a gun unless you had cash but that wouldn’t happen because there’d be no way to perform a background check.

We would still have laws.

Some Final Thoughts

Forget 911 — you’d not have a phone system, cell or otherwise. The nice thing about living in Montana, at least in the winter, if your electric grid fails you can always put food outside and it will stay frozen.

But it might not be a bad idea to think about having a food supply on hand that would not require electricity to fix.

Based on past experience how long would it take the government to get some form of communication up and running?

It took them five days to get water to the Superdome during Katrina. Not sure I’d be too excited about a quick fix from our illustrious leaders. Puerto Rico anyone?

What say you? Comments below.

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