Marshall asked, “Any ideas what the agent may have meant by ‘paralyze’?”
“Cyberattack,” Brandt said bluntly.
The room remained silent, partly because Brandt was so often right and partly because of the weight Brandt’s opinions carried with the president.
The Oracle’s sightless ice-blue eyes were cast in the general direction of the president. He listened for a response from anyone in the room. When none came he continued. “Mr. President, we should consider the possibility that the Russians are preparing to launch a massive cyberattack. And if our operating premise, as suggested by Doug, is to assume the worst, then we should expect it to affect every critical sector of our economy and government.”
“Upon what do you base this, Jim?”
“It’s a guess, but a guess informed by logic and the progression of Russian asymmetrical warfare. Consider that the EMP plot was essentially asymmetrical, so much so that we hadn’t developed a response doctrine in the event of an EMP.”
Marshall’s jaws tightened. He had been furious about learning during the EMP affair that the country had never developed a response doctrine to an EMP strike. “Please don’t tell me we haven’t developed a response doctrine to a massive cyberattack.”
“We have, Mr. President,” DHS secretary Cruz interjected. “My department, along with the Office of the DNI and the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, has been hardening the National Cyber Incident Response Plan. We’ve prepared coordinated responses for various federal agencies, military, states, and local authorities.”
Marshall exhaled. “Thank goodness.”
“We’ve also had significant success in joint DOD and DHS Cyber Guard Exercises,” Cruz added. “The last such exercise took place earlier this summer.”
“So we’re up to speed against a cyberattack, then?” Marshall asked.
“I believe so, Mr. President,” Cruz replied.
“Ted,” Marshall said, turning to Secretary of State Lawrence, “what about coordination with our allies? If Russia strikes us there’s a good chance they’ll do so against other Western nations, particularly NATO signatories.”
“We’ve conferred with NATO allies on a regular basis, Mr. President. Many of them agree that we should do what we can to prevent cyberattacks, but the threat is somewhat overblown.” Lawrence quickly raised his hand. “That’s not to say it’s not a concern, but we and our allies are ahead of the game.”
Marshall turned to Brandt. “Why are you concerned about a cyberattack from the Russians, especially if—as it seems to be the case—we’re fairly well prepared?”
“Mr. President, both Susan and Ted are correct that we’ve been coordinating both within our government and with allies to prevent or respond to any major incident of cyberwarfare. But most of that coordination is at the administrative level and is mostly responsive, not preventative. The efforts are focused primarily on what should be done to minimize the effects of a cyberattack and what agencies are responsible for addressing and remedying such effects.”
“That’s not quite accurate, Mr. President,” Lawrence countered. “We have fairly robust defenses and countermeasures in place to deflect and thwart massive cyberattacks, not just at DHS and the Defense Department, but the CIA and NSA as well. Moreover, US Cyber Command has remarkable retaliatory capabilities that, among other things, act as a powerful deterrent.
“But more important, you may remember the NATO conference last spring on asymmetrical warfare where the consensus was that while we shouldn’t understate the threat of cyberwarfare, the threat has been vastly overstated.”
Marshall looked around the room. “Anyone else?”
“Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Merritt said, “I also was in attendance at the NATO conference this spring. No doubt the presenters were the best minds on the topic. But you may recall the dissenting opinion of Hans Richter from the German Federal Office for Information Security. His hair was on fire. He related that the Germans only by chance had discovered cyberattacks against them that had corrupted several of their best-defended systems. According to Richter, it was clear the attacks were mere probing forays to gauge the vulnerability of German systems, but had they been full-blown attacks, catastrophic damage would have been done to critical infrastructure.”
“As I recall, Richter didn’t assign blame to any particular state actor,” Marshall said.
“He did not,” Merritt acknowledged. “But the Russians are the most capable. From a defense perspective, I submit the most responsible course of action is to assume a massive cyberattack would be catastrophic, and that the Russians may be behind it.”
Marshall turned to Brandt. “Jim?”
“I concur completely with Doug. Yes, the consensus is that a massive cyberattack might cause some problems but it wouldn’t be catastrophic. I respectfully submit this view, however well-considered, suffers from a profound lack of imagination.”
Marshall’s brow furrowed. “We just averted an EMP. Could it be as catastrophic as that would’ve been?”
“The word ‘paralyze’ was used,” Brandt replied. “That’s an apt description of what a major cyberattack could do to us. But only a partial description. It would also render us deaf, dumb, and blind.”
“Wonderful.” Marshall sighed. “I’m loving this job more every day. Elaborate, Jim.”
“Senate Armed Services conducted a hearing on this just a couple of months ago. The Russians could disrupt our electrical power grid, industrial control systems, communications systems—almost any system that isn’t air-gapped. We could be without lights, cell phones, computers. Financial data could crash and disappear—trillions upon trillions of dollars could evaporate. We would, indeed, be functionally paralyzed. We couldn’t identify and respond to external threats. The economy would be in turmoil. In many respects, we’d become the functional equivalent of a third world country. We would be dangerously overmatched against any of our present or potential adversaries.”
Lawrence bristled. “Not really, Mr. President. Our military and intelligence infrastructures are largely insulated. We’ve hardened most of our defense systems.”
“But,” Brandt countered, “the domestic disturbance would render any such hardening irrelevant. Because we’d be dealing with utter chaos at home. Lord of the Flies. Besides, there’s some evidence Russia or China has already had success hacking our satellites and drones—so defense and intelligence aren’t invulnerable.”
“The dilemma, as I see it,” Marshall said, “is that we have no demonstrable evidence that a cyberattack will occur, or if one occurs, where it will come from. We have nothing to confront the potential attacker. Our option, then, is to be vigilant and do whatever we can in the interim to prevent it.”
“And prepare for the worst,” Brandt muttered under his breath.
The small but ornate conference room adjacent to Yuri Mikhailov’s office was quiet. No one spoke; there was barely any movement. Assembled within it were seven of the most powerful men in Russia, each in his own way formidable and intimidating. Each was used to being the most important person in the room, commanding attention, respect, and obedience merely by his presence.
Arranged around a rectangular marble-topped table were First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Novikov, Minister of Defense Igor Oblomov, Minister of External Affairs Grigory Goncharov, Minister of Emerging Situations Ivan Sorokin, Marshal Vitaly Brin, General Pavel Turgenev, and the head of the Twelfth Chief Directorate, Aleksandr Stetchkin. Although technically Stetchkin reported to Oblomov, the former, by virtue of his long-standing relationship with the Russian president, was the most influential person in the room.