Digital Chaos – Widespread, systemic cyberattacks are not just possible or plausible; they should be anticipated

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“I believe that there will be another crisis. It will be more significant. It will be faster than what we’ve seen with COVID. The impact will be greater, and as a result the economic and social implications will be even more significant.” Jeremy Jurgens, WEF Managing Director

It is always so interesting what mainstream media views as important to report. As a media source, we began to warn about the 2020 pandemic in 2019, and our warnings were mostly ignored. As a responsible media outlet, we shared what was coming down the pipeline once we had heard what was in store. This week, we are going to share another exercise that has been implemented by the World Economic Forum, one that would devastate world economies, and one that was quietly done, just as planning for the pandemic was done before. 

This tabletop exercise was conducted on October 18^th, 2019. I want you to pay close attention to this because the writing has always been on the wall. Event 201 simulated an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.

The disease started in pig farms in Brazil (markets in Wuhan), quietly and slowly at first, but then it started to spread more rapidly in healthcare settings. When it started to spread efficiently from person to person in the low-income, densely packed neighborhoods of some of the megacities in South America, the epidemic exploded. It is first exported by air travel to Portugal, the United States, and China and then to many other countries. Although at first some countries were able to control it, it continued to spread and be reintroduced, and eventually no country could maintain control.

There was no possibility of a vaccine being available in the first year. There was a fictional antiviral drug that could help the sick, but not significantly limit spread of the disease.

Since the whole human population was susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increased exponentially, doubling every week. As the cases and deaths accumulate, the economic and societal consequences become increasingly severe.

The scenario ends at the 18-month point, with 65 million deaths. The pandemic slowed due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic continued at some rate until there was an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population had been exposed. From that point on, it was likely to be an endemic childhood disease.

Hmmmm!

I want people to stop here for a moment and read that section again before I move on. How were these world leaders so able to distinctly predict exactly what we went through during the pandemic, and still not be prepared. They knew what was going to happen, yet our governments acted so surprised by it.

Hmmmm!

Now, I am going to report on something that was discussed in July of 2021, and the only reason that I am bringing this to everyone’s attention is because the first time they warned us about something, THE WORLD DID NOT LISTEN! If you read the above exercise, it played out exactly as the predicted (no coincidence there), yet when we initially reported on it, we were discredited, censored, called conspiracy theorists, and basically ignored.

Let’s try this again, community.

They are forcing this idea of a digital life on us: digital id’s, cashless societies, smart cities, electric vehicles, all the while they have begun to prepare for what they call a “Cyber Pandemic.”

What would you do if you couldn’t access your bank accounts, the internet, or your cell phone suddenly stopped working? These are the kinds of things people really do need to think through because one day we may be facing a crisis like that.

The World Economic Forum kicked off its annual Cyber Polygon in July 2021, which gave companies and governments the opportunity to participate in a simulation of a “Cyber Pandemic”. It was a practice session in which they got to brainstorm a scenario, how it would affect the world economy, how it might affect individual corporations and what could be done to protect them.

The participants of the conference were:

• Sberbank CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board Herman Gref
• Inventor and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
• President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Maurer
• INTERPOL Secretary-General Jürgen Stock
• President of Mastercard Europe Mark Barnett
• Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia Alexey Zabotkin

Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Martin Schwab was the event’s special guest, and the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin addressed the participants. There was also a remote interview with Russian astronauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, who were joining in from the ISS.

During this exercise, they discussed why we should prepare for a COVID-like global cyber pandemic that will spread faster and further than a biological virus, with an equal or greater economic impact.

The coronavirus crisis provided insights into how leaders can better prepare for such cyber risks. They state clearly that a cyber pandemic is probably as inevitable as a future disease pandemic. The time to start thinking about the response is – as always – yesterday.

Before we move forward, I have a question for you; if they are saying that a cyber pandemic is inevitable, then why are they pushing us towards digitizing everything? Why not keep tangible assets (money, gold, silver, platinum, copper) around so that if a cyber-attack was to happen, people would not be left stranded with no access to their funds?

They state that a cyber-attack with characteristics similar to the coronavirus would spread faster and further than any biological virus. The cyber equivalent of COVID-19 would be a self-propagating attack using one or more “zero-day” exploits, techniques for which patches, and specific antivirus software signatures are not yet available. Most likely, it would attack all devices running a single, common operating system or application.

The economic impact of a widespread digital shutdown would be of the same; the end result: millions of devices would be taken offline in a matter of days.

The only way to stop the exponential propagation of cyber-COVID would be to fully disconnect all vulnerable devices from one another and the internet to avoid infection. The whole world could experience cyber lockdown until a digital vaccine was developed.

A digital vaccine; really?

Cyber lockdown would also introduce novel challenges for digitally dependent economies. During the 2020 Australian bushfires, power outages and damage to mobile phone infrastructure gave citizens a newfound appreciation for battery-operated FM radios. If cyber-COVID ravaged a country, which radio stations would still operate without digital recording and transmission systems?

Recovery from the widespread destruction of digital systems would be extremely challenging.

Replacing 5% of the world’s connected devices would require around 71 million new devices. It would be impossible for manufacturers to rapidly scale up production to meet demand.

Widespread, systemic cyberattacks are not just possible or plausible; they should be anticipated. As we have seen with COVID-19, even a short delay in the response can cause exponential damage.

I find it interesting that at the end of the World Economic Forum release they state, “Let’s be better prepared for that one.” How by introducing digital id’s?

Community, it is time that we take control of our destiny. We have to take a stand against the digital invasion that is going to leave us floundering. Start to stockpile your tangible resources, just like I had instructed about stocking up food. Stop relying so heavily on debit cards, your phones and computers. Yes, technology is great, but if used against us, it will be devastating.

You have all been warned.