EMP BOMBS: MOVIES, ,GAMES, JERICHO AND REALITY
Filed Tuesday, December 5. 2006
EMP Technology has been exploited in movies like Ocean’s Eleven and Matrix: Revolutions and now on Jericho on TV, but do you really know how much damage a real E-Bomb can deliver to your corporate door-step when you are not EMP-proof?” asks James Carlini.
Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Bombs, sometimes also referred to as HPM (High-Power Microwave), have been discussed for over several decades (ever since they were viewed as a threat in the Cold War) and most recently appearing in popular entertainment, portrayed as a device to wipe out everything electronic that is not shielded. The E-BOMB is basically an electrical weapon of mass destruction (EWMD). Lately, there has been even more attention given to these EWMD’s. There are references to EMP Bombs, HPM, or E-Bombs in movies as well as popular combat games and a new TV series, Jericho. Susceptible items are devices that run on very low voltage batteries like laptops, PDAs, and hand-held devices which use CMOS and NMOS as well as unshielded copper cabling. Virtual reality movies and sci-fi-thriller series aside, what does this really mean to organizations and their network infrastructures? Some people paint an EMP disaster scenario that would make Hurricane Katrina look like a picnic. From the article, “HOW E- BOMBS WORK” by Tom Harris: “Anyone who's been through a prolonged power outage knows that it's an extremely trying experience. Within an hour of losing electricity, you develop a healthy appreciation of all the electrical devices you rely on in life. After a couple hours, you start pacing around your house. After a few days without lights, electric heat or TV, your stress level shoots through the roof. Without getting into a lot of technical details, that is the overview of a threat which increasingly seems more reality than fantasy. Organizations should take note and begin re-designing their data centers and other mission critical networks to develop a hardened countermeasure for this risk. But in the grand scheme of things, that's nothing. If an outage hits an entire city, and there aren't adequate emergency resources, people may die from exposure, companies may suffer huge productivity losses, and millions of dollars of food may spoil. If a power outage hit on a much larger scale, it could shut down the electronic networks that keep governments and militaries running. We are utterly dependent on power, and when it's gone, things get very bad, very fast. An electromagnetic bomb, or e-bomb, is a weapon designed to take advantage of this dependency. But instead of simply cutting off power in an area, an e-bomb would actually destroy most machines that use electricity. Generators would be useless, cars wouldn't run, and there would be no chance of making a phone call. In a matter of seconds, a big enough e-bomb could thrust an entire city back 200 years or cripple a military unit. The U.S. military has been pursuing the idea of an e-bomb for decades, and many believe it now has such a weapon in its arsenal. On the other end of the scale, terrorist groups could be building low-tech e-bombs to inflict massive damage on the United States.” EMP WEAPON DISTANCE Remember there are two types of nuclear attacks – a ground burst and an air burst. In an air burst you would not get the “Mushroom Cloud” that you see on every atomic bomb movie. An E-Bomb gets exploded above the earth. Its fraction-of-a-second electronic pulse can cripple everything electronic that is not shielded from Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI), including power grids and telecommunications infrastructures. Having a weapons platform that can deliver this type of bomb high into the atmosphere is all that is needed. A super-accurate missile system with pinpoint guidance is not needed, as long as you are not targeting a very specific area. An EMP just needs to be exploded over a region. The higher it is, the more coverage it has. (see Diagram 1)
IN THE MOVIES “Factual error: The EMP wave generated from "The Pinch" would do more than just black out the city. It would also permanently disable any electronic equipment including cars, mobile phones, TV cameras (like the ones recording the fight), mobile phones, slot machines, computers, in fact any electrical equipment used in the world today, More importantly the entire security system would have been disabled which means that Benedict could not have seen his vault getting robbed from the security room. The only way an electronic device can survive an EMP is if the device is turned off.” Well, the “mistake” says that “the only way an electronic device can survive an EMP is if the device is turned off.” That is not necessarily true. If the device is properly shielded, it would also be able to survive an EMP blast. So much for the critics. There are other recent movies that refer to the use of EMP bombs and weaponry: THE MATRIX: Revolutions (2003) also had references to EMP Bombs. INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) – had references of vehicles that were not susceptible to EMP weapons, like the M93 FOX. IN GAMES Like so many other new technology-based weapons, movies and science fiction, as well as combat games have romanticized EMP’s. But, what would happen if they were used for real? ON TV – JERICHO Here is one I thought was interesting: “Now, I thought that the internet was built around an older US military intranet, designed specifically to survive a nuclear attack. I mean there is so much redundancy built into the phone network that destruction of a number of main cities wouldn't completely disable this system. They have electricity coming from somewhere, so power to drive their pc's/laptops… communications should have been far more resilient.” Resilient? Not with tons of unshielded, twisted pair as the last mile. And what do you make of this comment on the same blog?: “If you look at the targets Boulder, Wichita, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, etc., these aren't military targets and they are not major population centers. They are something in between.” Chicago is NOT a major population area? And from another discussion forum: “The whole EMP issue is tackled in tonight’s episode. I don't know how you get an EMP from a bomb 2 weeks later.” The short answer to that: You don’t. It’s immediate. So much for technical accuracy on Jericho. IN REALITY “U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says his main concern following North Korea’s claim that it tested a nuclear explosive is that it could provide nuclear technology to other countries, and to terrorist groups. Secretary Rumsfeld says North Korea’s claim has raised concern around the world, and that his particular concern about the nuclear programs there and in Iran is the potential for proliferation. “Their programs point to increasing risks of lethal weapons possibly ending up in the hands of non-state entities, folks that, unlike a nation, tend not to be deterred the way a nation-state would because they don’t have to worry about protecting real estate, population and leadership,” he said. Secretary Rumsfeld says North Korea and Iran have already shown their willingness to sell weapons both to other countries and to terrorist groups. He also expressed concern that North Korea’s test could inspire moves by other countries in Asia to develop their own nuclear weapons capabilities. Misinformation about E-Bombs should be cleared up. After seeing 9/11 happen, the range of security scenarios that this country was prepared to deal with was definitely not complete. All the “defense experts” went back to the drawing board to intellectualize and debate “How could this have ever happened?” Well it did and they definitely did not have it covered in their strategic play book.” From a review of a House subcommittee report: “Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, chairman of the House Projection Forces Subcommittee, says an EMP attack – even by an underfunded, unsophisticated terrorist group – has the potential to cripple U. S. society and kill millions. "Today we are very much concerned ... about asymmetric weapons," Bartlett told his colleagues. "We are a big, powerful country. Nobody can contend with us shoulder-to-shoulder, face-to-face. So all of our potential adversaries are looking for what we refer to as asymmetric weapons. That is a weapon that overcomes our superior capabilities. There is no asymmetric weapon that has anywhere near the potential of EMP." Bartlett added: "Potential adversaries are aware of the EMP's strategic attack option. Ninety-nine percent of Americans may not know very much about EMP, but I will assure you ... that 100 percent of our potential enemies know all about EMP. I think that the American people need to know about EMP because they need to demand that their government do the prudent thing so that we will be less and less susceptible, less and less at risk to an EMP attack year by year. The threat is not adequately addressed in U. S. national and homeland security programs. Not only is it not adequately addressed; it is usually ignored, not even mentioned, and it certainly needs to be considered." EMP, he warned, can cause catastrophic damage to the nation by destroying the electric power infrastructure, causing cascading failures in the infrastructure for everything: telecommunications, energy, transportation, finance, food, and water.” Judging by this serious warning, it seems that all businesses should have EMP’s on their risk management radar screen. Yet, the truth is that most risk managers are probably not up to speed in this area and would probably not even see it coming. In another recent article entitled “U.S. Seen Vulnerable to Space 'Pulse' Attack,’” by Bill Gertz Frank J. Gaffney Jr, of the Center for Security Policy, former Pentagon offical, and author warns: "this is the single most serious national-security challenge and certainly the least known.” His book explains that “an electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) attack uses X-rays and gamma rays produced in a nuclear blast in three separate waves of pulses, each with more damaging effects, and would take months or years to repair… The damage to unshielded electronics would be irreversible.” To some people, this is just another fear designed to generate expenditures in defense budgets or in corporate risk management areas. To others, it is a realistic issue that must be considered a threat to business continuity and network infrastructures just like the risk of a hurricane or a conventional power-grid outage. Maybe a new generation of electronic devices should be developed which have an “EMP Proof” seal of approval or maybe there is another solution. At the least, though, the serious risk EMP’s pose to our current electronic world should be taken seriously. CARLINI-ISM: To ignore EMP threats in your risk management plan is foolish at this point. Last modified on 2008-08-28 06:17 Trackbacks
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