A nationwide war game was performed this week to determine how prepared the United States is for a full-scale cyberattack.
Utility experts and F.B.I. agents across the country dealt with scenarios including the enemy injecting computer viruses into grid control systems, bombing transformers, and knocking out power lines.
The drill was run by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, who’s president Gerry W. Cauley said the drill was "a bit scary" but went "really well."
The drill found that a large-scale cyberattack would cause major damage, such as ravaging the nation’s power grid and many casualties, according to the New York Times.
By late Thursday morning, in this unprecedented continental-scale war game to determine how prepared the nation is for a cyberattack, tens of millions of Americans were in simulated darkness. Hundreds of transmission lines and transformers were declared damaged or destroyed, and the engineers were rushing to assess computers that were, for the purposes of the drill, tearing their system apart. […]
There were seven "deaths" of police officers, firefighters and utility workers who showed up to investigate reports of problems at substations or power lines and were shot by attackers still on the scene. In all, there were 150 "casualties," Mr. Cauley said. Attempts to restore equipment and get the lights back on were stymied by police officers who locked down the locations because of "active shooters."