® Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 1 4/19/11 4:04 PM Except where noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copy- right © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Verses marked nasb are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lock man.org) Verses marked niv are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota Cover photos © Argus, Alx / Fotolia CYBER MELTDOWN Copyright © 2011 by Ron Rhodes Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rhodes, Ron. Cyber meltdown / Ron Rhodes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7369-4417-5 (pbk.) ISBN 987-0-7369-4423-6 (eBook) 1. Bible—Prophecies—Cyberterrorism. 2. Cyberterrorism—Biblical teaching. 3. Bible— Prophecies—End of the world. 4. End of the world—Biblical teaching. I. Title. BS649.C83R46 2011 236'.9—dc22 2010052597 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / LB-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 2 4/19/11 4:04 PM CONTENTS Introduction: Technologies That Amaze .................... 9 PART 1: A SOBERING CYBER WAKE-UP CALL . 1 Probing U.S. Vulnerabilities ............................. 17 2. Cyber Warfare: A Growing Global Menace .................. 31 3. We Are Being Watched: Cyber Espionage ................... 43 4. Weaponized Software: A Real and Present Danger . 51 5. Stuxnet: Cyber Apocalypse Now .......................... 61 6. The Cyber Threat Against the U.S. Infrastructure ............. 73 7. Cyber Thugs and Their Cyber Crimes ...................... 81 8. The Militarization of Cyberspace ......................... 93 9. Is There No Defense? .................................. 103 PART 2: WHO ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? 10. Biometrics ........................................... 119 11. GPS Technology ...................................... 131 PART 3: THE ROLE OF CYBER TECHNOLOGIES IN END-TIMES BIBLE PROPHECY 12. Cyber Economics and Our Coming Cashless Society .......... 141 13. Cyber Control and the Emergence of a Global Government ..... 161 14. Cyber Espionage and End-Times Persecutions ............... 181 15. Cyber Injury and the End-Times Decline of the United States ... 195 16. Cyber Strategies in End-Time Wars ....................... 211 Postscript: Living as an End-Times Christian ................ 225 Appendix A: The Hard Facts ............................. 241 Appendix B: Cyber Glossary ............................. 245 Appendix C: The Danger of Predicting the Dates of End-Time Events ................................. 251 Appendix D: If You Are Not a Christian… .................. 253 Bibliography ......................................... 259 Notes .............................................. 263 Index ............................................... 277 Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 7 4/19/11 4:04 PM 1 PROBING U.S. VULNERABILITIES ou might be surprised to learn that the United States is highly vulnerable to severe injury from cyber weapons. In fact, Richard YClarke, former antiterrorism czar to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, warns that great damage could be infl icted on America in a mere 15 minutes. In his book Cyber War: Th e Next National Security Th reat and What to Do About It, he warns of a possible “electronic Pearl Har- bor,” the likes of which we have never seen before. Here is the apoca- lyptic scenario he paints, all based on a single massive cyber attack.* • Th e unclassifi ed Department of Defense network known as the NIPRNET collapses, with heavy-duty routers throughout the network failing and constantly rebooting. • Th e Department of Defense classifi ed networks grind to a halt. • Computer networks at the Pentagon collapse. • Internet service providers go into meltdown. • Meltdowns also take place at major fi nancial computer * Specifi c aspects of this scenario are confi rmed many times over in the books and articles on cyber attacks I consulted for this book. 17 Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 17 4/19/11 4:04 PM 18 CYBER MELTDOWN centers in New York. Terabytes* of financial data are wiped clean, so no one knows who owns what. • The computer systems at the Federal Aviation Adminis- tration’s National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Virginia, collapse. • Computer systems at alternate air traffic control centers go down, so they cannot see what aircraft are aloft. • Multiple airline midair collisions ensue. • Infrastructure attacks cause large refinery fires and explo- sions in various cities. • Chemical plants malfunction with lethal clouds of chlo- rine gas spewing into the air. • Major gas pipelines explode in various suburbs. • Subway trains crash in multiple cities. • Traffic lights go out all over the country, resulting in thou- sands of casualties due to collisions. • Freight trains derail across the country. • Blackouts occur in major cities due to power grid failures. • Communication, weather, and navigation satellites deviate from their orbits, completely disrupting service. • Food and medical supplies are depleted at local stores due to the disruption in transportation. • Communication breaks down on many different levels— including between the different sectors of our government and military. 1 Clarke soberly warns that in all the wars America has participated in, no one nation has ever done this kind of damage to cities in the United States. “A sophisticated cyber war attack by one of several nation-states * A terabyte is equivalent to 1 trillion bytes (1 million megabytes, or 1000 gigabytes). Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 18 4/19/11 4:04 PM Probing U.S. Vulnerabilities 19 could do that today, in fifteen minutes, without a single terrorist or sol- dier ever appearing in this country.” 2 You might think all this sounds rather alarmist. But keep in mind that Richard Clarke is a credible source who has had continued access to reliable intelligence data, and he has a long track record of being right. 3 Even worse, we may never know with certainty who is responsible for cyber attacks. Was it Russia? Was it China? Was it North Korea? Was it Iran? Such ambiguity makes retaliation much more difficult. This anonymity could encourage many anti-America countries to engage in such attacks. ASSESSING OUR LEVEL OF READINESS During the NFL preseason, professional football teams compete in order to see how adept their players are individually and how well the team functions as a whole. These preseason games demonstrate to the coaches what their team is doing right and what changes need to be made. Some preseason games are like a rude awakening—a sudden and unanticipated heads-up that they may be in for a losing season unless they make some changes. This is similar to some cyber-readiness tests that the United States has participated in recently. Such tests are engineered to reveal what would happen if our country experienced a full-fledged cyber attack. • How much damage would the United States sustain from a cyber attack? • How would a cyber attack affect the civilian population, corporate America, and the military? • How would the government itself react to a cyber attack, and how quickly? • Would life go on as normal? • Would we survive? Let me tell you about a few of these cyber tests and what they reveal about U.S. preparedness. Copyrighted material Cyber Meltdown.indd 19 4/19/11 4:04 PM 20 CYBER MELTDOWN CYBER SHOCKWAVE In the interests of national survival, our government gathered a group of highly informed people—people with important jobs, people who know a lot about governing, national security, and planning—and challenged them to produce a realistic simulation of what might really happen in this country during a bona fide cyber attack. The event was hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center (hereafter BPC) and was appropriately called Cyber ShockWave. It was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington DC on February 16, 2010, and it simulated an attack that was to unfold over a single day in July 2011. The simulation provided an unprecedented firsthand look at how our government would react during such a crisis. Knowing how important it was for the simulation to be realistic, the people and organizations chosen to oversee its design were known for their acumen in technology and national security. The simulation was designed by former CIA director general Michael Hayden and the BPC National Security Preparedness Group, and it was led by the cochairs of the 9/11 Commission: Governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton. To further ensure a realistic simulation, Cyber ShockWave was developed in partnership with General Dynamics Advanced Infor- mation Systems, Georgetown University, PayPal, and SMobile Systems. The collective goal was to “highlight the immediate, real dangers of cyberterrorism by bringing together a bipartisan group of former
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