What do you do if there is widespread cyber-warfare?

 In 2015, Dr Pete Forster and I developed a class for the MS Program in Homeland Security tentatively named SRA-404.  It was focused on cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare.  It was one of the first classes of its kind.  Peter is an expert on the political and espionage scene. My expertise was in the technology of cyber crime, espionage and warfare.

One of the bigger things, IMHO, to come out of the class was an exercise on what to do if this happens or how to prepare. In this posting I present the suggestions. I cannot say they are complete. A lot depends on specifics.

Direct attacks.

By these I mean worms, viruses, and such. They could conceivably be deployed for activation later.  Mainly we are talking about home and small-business systems. Of course you have good anti-virus and firewall protection. Make sure you have backups stored on a non-electronic media - such as CD or DVD. A low nuke could put off an EMP and potentially fry solid-state or magtape backups.  If you have access to a safe or faraday cage use it for your backups.  I bought a home safe and a home UPS for under $200. I also have multiple backups on CD and DVD (also SSD ) all of which goes in the safe with my pistols.

Attacks on servers and networks

I would create a doc with all of your PWs and IDs on it and print that a few times.  Also maybe encrypt it and put it somewhere on the cloud.  Having encrypted docs on the cloud is great if you know what you ae doing.  I will post more about that later.

Do not expect that any of your online services will be working under a cyberattack.  Therefore have a backup plan for paying bills, etc.  In the old days we used to write checks. I would also keep about 2K in cash (20s) just in case. Should hold you over for a week or more.

Now the bad stuff. I learned a lot living in a Hurricane zone.  Prepare as if a disaster were coming. Esp your meds, water, canned food, peanut butter, etc. In PA we had the occasional blackout during a blizzard. We used a wood stove to stay warm.

I am not suggesting becoming a survivalist, but the potential for damage from a cyberattack is too great to ignore. And BTW, a cyberattack can come from the Sun as well. More on that later.