Lights Out: A Review

When one thinks of terrorism, one probably thinks of angry Muslim men bombing or shooting up crowded areas and high-profile targets in an effort to inflict as many infidel casualties as possible. However, while that threat is certainly very real and extremely effective, there is a much more sinister, but equally plausible menace: our nations's electrical grid and computer system. True, an attack on our nation's power infrastructure may not bring a large body count the way that "traditional" terrorism does with bombs and guns, but the true goal of any terror act is to bring panic and fear. In his book, Lights Out, investigative journalist Ted Koppel brings to us a doomsday scenario, the one in which both non-state actors such as ISIS or Al-Qaeda as well as hostile state actors such as China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia armed with advanced knowledge of cybersystems launch highly skilled hacking attacks on America's power grid. If successful, it would bring a black out that would last months or even years. Food supplies would run out, and as a result, there would be mass looting and unrest with innocent people being injured or killed. There are several ways to do this, with the most menacing being an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack in which a brief but extremely powerful burst from a satellite would render anything with a circuit board permanently useless. In his book, Ted Koppel describes how unprepared America is from such an attack, and how heavy government regulation of the power grid gets in the way of preventive solutions from being implemented.

Lights Out is a very informative book. The author writes in an accessible and engaging manner. Koppel hopes that his book will spur government leaders into taking the threat seriously and ultimately securing our power grid from hackers as well as putting preventive measures in place against EMP attacks.

Disclaimer; I received a free copy of the book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.