September 10, 2021
Dear Friends and Family,
I recently decided to follow up on the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) information that was contained in the China series – Segment 5 – published a little over a year ago. My takeaways from this new research are as follows:
My Takeaways:
The follow-on excerpts provide an overview on the subject. Much greater detail is contained in the PDF below.
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
I recently decided to follow up on the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) information that was contained in the China series – Segment 5 – published a little over a year ago. My takeaways from this new research are as follows:
My Takeaways:
- Two types of EMP threats exist: First a massive solar storm which experts predict a 12% probability of occurring in the next 10 years (the last one being in 1859). Second, a manmade EMP attack. China and Russia have the capability for a full-scale U.S. wide attack today and North Korea and Iran are not far behind. ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Syria could launch such an attack on a regional (versus U.S. wide) basis.
- The potential for such an attack has been studied for over 20 years. In 2008, the congressionally commissioned EMP Commission reported such an attack could be neutralized with an expenditure of $20 billion over a five-year period for implementation.
- The potential impact of such an attack could be catastrophic with a total loss of electricity throughout the country for at least a year per the EMP Commission and others with an accompanying significant loss of life due to starvation, disease, or societal collapse.
- The reason no action has been taken is reported as strong resistance by the electric industry and their lobbyists joined by government bureaucrats who downplay the potential of occurrence coupled with a claim of high costs for avoidance. In my judgement, both resistance claims are baseless if the EMP attack probability, risk and cost is compared with the probability, risk and cost of global warming (Climate Change).
- Current action to defend against any EMP attack appears to be little to none on the federal level. There is some minor activity occurring at the state level.
The follow-on excerpts provide an overview on the subject. Much greater detail is contained in the PDF below.
Happy Learning,
Harley
CHINA – SEGMENT 6
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) – EXCERPTS
THE REALITY OF TODAY: The United States – and modern civilization more generally – faces a present and continuing existential threat from naturally occurring and manmade electromagnetic pulse assault and related attacks on military and critical national infrastructures. A nationwide blackout of the electric power grid and grid-critical infrastructures – communications, transportation, sanitation, food and water supply – could plausibly last a year or longer … An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation.
Source: Congressional EMP Commission Assessing the Threat from EMP Attack, July 2017 as published in The Power and Light by Peter Vincent Fry (2019).
By the power vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows … An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has the potential to disrupt, degrade, and damage technology and critical infrastructure systems. Human-made or naturally occurring EMPs can affect large geographic areas, disrupting elements critical to the Nation’s security and economic prosperity, and could adversely affect global commerce and stability. The Federal Government must foster sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective approaches to improving the Nation’s resilience to the effects of EMP’s.
Source: President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 13865, March 26, 2019.
The possibility of man-made EMP events has grown in relation to the technological sophistication of America’s adversaries. It is a widely known fact, that both Russia and China already have this capability, and both countries have carried out serious work relating to the generation of EMP in recent years, as part of their respective military modernization programs. Scientists concur that such an attack would have devastating consequences. A nuclear warhead detonated 300 miles above St. Louis, Missouri, could collapse the entire nation’s power grid. According to the EMP Commission, the recovery time from such a nationwide EMP event might be anywhere from one to ten years. In the meantime, 90% of Americans would likely die from starvation, disease, or societal collapse.
SOURCES OF EMP: A powerful electromagnetic pulse, whether resulting from a nuclear-delivered EMP or a massive solar storm, could collapse the power grid and the critical infrastructure of our nation. There is good reason to be concerned. A National Academy of Sciences study found there is a 12% chance that a monster solar storm will strike Earth within the next decade. Has such a storm ever hit Earth? Yes, several times. Imagine our way of life without power for weeks on end, as a result of a massive solar flare striking the Earth. It happened in 1859, in what is commonly referred to as the Carrington Event. This event was long before humanity became utterly reliant on electronics. While severe solar storms do not occur that often, they have the potential for long-term catastrophic impact to the nation’s grid.
Senator Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, began hearings in the summer of 2015 on the threat of an EMP detonation of the U.S. Their conclusion: The threat is real, and the need for the U.S. to prepare for this eventuality is critical. Chairman Johnson stated that although the issue EMP has been on the government radar for years, it has largely gone ignored. He pointed out the fact that not one of the suggestions put forward by the congressionally mandated EMP Commission, formed in 2002 has been put in place.
MILITARY USES: Electromagnetic bombs are weapons of electrical mass destruction with applications across a broad spectrum of targets, spanning both the strategic and tactical. The non-lethal nature of electromagnetic weapons makes their use far less politically damaging than that of conventional munitions, and therefore, broadens the range of military options.
A nuclear EMP attack is the perfect asymmetric weapon for state actors who wish to level the battlefield by neutralizing the great technological advantage enjoyed by the U.S. military forces. EMP is also the only means whereby a rogue state of terrorists could use a single nuclear weapon to destroy the U.S. and prevail with a single blow. The Department of Defense has admitted that our country’s intelligence resources lack the technical means to monitor the development of the nuclear weapons programs of other nations, or terrorist organizations.
Russia – China- North Korea -Iran – Syria – ISIS – Al Qaeda. What do these seven geopolitical foes have in common? They both hate and disrespect the United States. What if one of these bad actors decided to make it our problem with an attack on the heartland along the lines of Pearl Harbor? Is that so implausible? Remember 9/11. Our enemies consider a high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic (HEMP) attack as the ultimate weapon. No bombs. No bullets. No swordfights. Just a few keystrokes on the computer, and we’re done.
China leads the way in EMP research and application. The lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse and high-powered microwave weapons are now part of China’s shashoujian, or assassin’s mace arsenal—weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to level the playing field with U.S. military forces. Military strategists have long predicted that the first attack in China’s Assassin’s Mace arsenal would be a Super-EMP.
WE CAN PREVENT AN EMP CATASTROPHE: The Congressional EMP Commission spent eight years developing a plan to protect all infrastructure from EMP – a plan that would also mitigate threats from cyberattack, sabotage, and natural disasters. The Commission estimated in 2008 it would cost $2 billion to harden the grid’s critical nodes. The remainder of the proposed plan could have been implemented within 5 years, at a cost of $20 billion. These sums are modest when compared with the unimaginably high costs associated with trying to recover from a HEMP attack. To put this in perspective had Washington adopted the Commission’s plan, it would have been completed at the time of this book’s release. By comparison $20 billion, the high estimate of the Commission’s suggested plan, is equal to 17 days of interest on our national debt. The cost, however, has been an excuse for inaction.
Source: The Threat of EMP by Bobby Akart
THE POLITICS SURROUNDING EMP DEFENSE: The Congressionally mandated blue-ribbon Commission to Assess the Threat of the U.S. from EMP Attack, established by Congress in 2000 known as the EMP Commission. The EMP Commission has been warning about the existential threat for nearly 20 years. So alarming is the looming EMP threat that the Commission has gone above and beyond the call of duty, made extraordinary efforts, been waging a war against ignorance, a war against a stubborn and irresponsible U.S. Government bureaucracy, a war against powerful and dishonest electric power industry lobbies, and a war against press bias and disinformation, to save the American people from a possible imminent EMP catastrophe.
Why have the recommendations of the EMP Commission to protect the nation’s life-sustaining critical infrastructures, and the lives of 330 million Americans met with such resistance? Fear and a failure of strategic imagination, as described in the 9/11 Commission Report, are major factors. EMP is still so little known and understood, in part because the EMP threat was deeply classified until made widely available by the EMP Commission reports (2004, 2008, 2017). Many ignorant journalists, academics, scientists, and electric power industry executives, companies, and industry organizations, still claim the EMP threat is non-existent or greatly exaggerated.
The Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security do not want to offend powerful electric monopolies, and their “partners” and patrons: corporations who prefer to let the public carry the risk of utilities failing on a large scale. An example of this risk/reward relationship is evident in California, where in 2019 electric monopolies tried to escape responsibility for destructive wildfires and rolling blackouts caused by their poorly maintained equipment.
Source: EMP Commissioner’s Report authored by Dr. William R. Graham and Ambassador R. James Woolsey; published in The Power and the Light by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry (2019)
Dr. William R. Graham was the Chairman of the EMP Commission served as White House Science Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, ran NASA, was on the defense science team that discovered the EMP phenomenon after the STARFISH PRIME nuclear test (1962) and has been contributing to the defense of the United States from EMP since 1963.
Ambassador R. James Woolsey was a Senior Advisor to the EMP Commission is a national security and energy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence who headed the Central Intelligence Agency (1993 - 1995), held a variety of government positions including Under Secretary of the Navy (1977 - 1979), and participated in treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union, including as Chief Negotiator of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.
CONCLUSION: In 2008, the bipartisan EMP Commission testified before Congress:
Lobbyists argued that we don’t think there is a likelihood that a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP)will take place in the United States, and therefore we don’t want to go through the expense of hardening the power grid against it.
EFFECTS ON PEOPLE: What would life look like for your family if this happened? There would be no heat or air-conditioning for your home. Water would no longer be pumped into most homes. Your computer would not work, nor would the internet. There would be no television or radio. ATMs would shut down, and there would be no banking or credit card transactions. Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning. Most people would be unable to do their jobs without power and employment would collapse, bringing the economy to a standstill. Hospitals would not be able to function, and a nation dependent upon prescription medication would have to do without. All refrigeration would shut down, and frozen foods in our supermarkets and homes would spoil. Most vehicles would shut down. Most Government services would collapse.
The consequences of a grid down scenario would be felt immediately. A disruption of this scale could cripple critical infrastructures and hinder the delivery of day-to-day necessities, because of the interconnectivity of telecommunication networks and the electrical dependence of most cities, government agencies, businesses, households, and individuals. It could require a long recovery period. To assess human consequences, the concern is one in which electricity, telecommunication and electronics are out of service for an extended period. Our politicians are unwilling to admit this, but the biggest threat to America is not the EMP attack itself, but the resulting societal collapse. Unfortunately, what one should fear the most is their fellow man.
Source: The Threat of EMP by Bobby Akart.
CURRENT STATUS: In Texas a bill to protect Texas electric grid from all hazards – including EMP, cyber warfare and sabotage – recently passed the state Senate. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electricity infrastructure, proved in February that they and the utilities are not even prepared to cope with a sever ice storm, let alone the existential threats from EMP and cyber warfare.
In South Carolina, Ambassador Henry Cooper, a former Air Force officer, EMP expert and engineer, is working with Duke Energy to protect a nuclear reactor from EMP. Ambassador Cooper says he has lost faith that Washington will ever act to protect the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructure from EMP and cyber warfare. According to Cooper, if America is to be protected, it won’t be done by an incompetent federal government but by the people and states, working “from the bottom up.” The recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack appears to prove the ambassador is right. The official story is that Russian hackers made a ransomware attack on the business side of Colonial Pipeline’s information technology network, moving the owners, Koch Industries, to shut down the pipeline to exercise “an abundance of caution.” So supposedly, turning ff the 5,500-mile artery that supplies 45% of petroleum to the eastern U.S. for civilian and military use – causing shortages and panic buying – was self-inflicted.
So why is Colonial Pipeline vulnerable to Russian hackers, and the electric grid vulnerable to ice storms, and all the nation’s life-sustaining critical infrastructure vulnerable to EMP and cyberattacks? Since President George W. Bush’s administration established the Department of Homeland Security, protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure supposedly has been high priority. But in truth, little has been done.
Source: 5/21/2021 article in The Hill by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry.
“On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive order that modernizes Federal Government defenses and improves the security of technology … On July 28, the President issued a National Security memorandum establishing voluntary cybersecurity goals that clearly outline our expectations for owners and operators of critical infrastructure. The Administration has also engaged with the private sector on the importance of prioritizing cybersecurity as a central part of their efforts to maintain business continuity. And internationally, the Biden Administration has rallied G7 countries to hold accountable nations who harbor ransomware criminals and to update NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years. The purpose of today’s meeting was to discuss opportunities to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity in partnership and individually. Several participants announce commitments and initiatives including:”
NOTE: I could find only one reference to any EMP initiatives by the Biden administration and assume that the Trump 2019 EMP Executive Order was rescinded. That reference was in the meta description under “Initiative to Bolster the Nation’s Cybersecurity – The White House” with the URL of whitehouse.gov 2021/08/25 which I assume relates to the fact sheet shown above. The meta description on 9/1/2021 read as follows:
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) – EXCERPTS
THE REALITY OF TODAY: The United States – and modern civilization more generally – faces a present and continuing existential threat from naturally occurring and manmade electromagnetic pulse assault and related attacks on military and critical national infrastructures. A nationwide blackout of the electric power grid and grid-critical infrastructures – communications, transportation, sanitation, food and water supply – could plausibly last a year or longer … An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation.
Source: Congressional EMP Commission Assessing the Threat from EMP Attack, July 2017 as published in The Power and Light by Peter Vincent Fry (2019).
By the power vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows … An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has the potential to disrupt, degrade, and damage technology and critical infrastructure systems. Human-made or naturally occurring EMPs can affect large geographic areas, disrupting elements critical to the Nation’s security and economic prosperity, and could adversely affect global commerce and stability. The Federal Government must foster sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective approaches to improving the Nation’s resilience to the effects of EMP’s.
Source: President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 13865, March 26, 2019.
The possibility of man-made EMP events has grown in relation to the technological sophistication of America’s adversaries. It is a widely known fact, that both Russia and China already have this capability, and both countries have carried out serious work relating to the generation of EMP in recent years, as part of their respective military modernization programs. Scientists concur that such an attack would have devastating consequences. A nuclear warhead detonated 300 miles above St. Louis, Missouri, could collapse the entire nation’s power grid. According to the EMP Commission, the recovery time from such a nationwide EMP event might be anywhere from one to ten years. In the meantime, 90% of Americans would likely die from starvation, disease, or societal collapse.
SOURCES OF EMP: A powerful electromagnetic pulse, whether resulting from a nuclear-delivered EMP or a massive solar storm, could collapse the power grid and the critical infrastructure of our nation. There is good reason to be concerned. A National Academy of Sciences study found there is a 12% chance that a monster solar storm will strike Earth within the next decade. Has such a storm ever hit Earth? Yes, several times. Imagine our way of life without power for weeks on end, as a result of a massive solar flare striking the Earth. It happened in 1859, in what is commonly referred to as the Carrington Event. This event was long before humanity became utterly reliant on electronics. While severe solar storms do not occur that often, they have the potential for long-term catastrophic impact to the nation’s grid.
Senator Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, began hearings in the summer of 2015 on the threat of an EMP detonation of the U.S. Their conclusion: The threat is real, and the need for the U.S. to prepare for this eventuality is critical. Chairman Johnson stated that although the issue EMP has been on the government radar for years, it has largely gone ignored. He pointed out the fact that not one of the suggestions put forward by the congressionally mandated EMP Commission, formed in 2002 has been put in place.
MILITARY USES: Electromagnetic bombs are weapons of electrical mass destruction with applications across a broad spectrum of targets, spanning both the strategic and tactical. The non-lethal nature of electromagnetic weapons makes their use far less politically damaging than that of conventional munitions, and therefore, broadens the range of military options.
A nuclear EMP attack is the perfect asymmetric weapon for state actors who wish to level the battlefield by neutralizing the great technological advantage enjoyed by the U.S. military forces. EMP is also the only means whereby a rogue state of terrorists could use a single nuclear weapon to destroy the U.S. and prevail with a single blow. The Department of Defense has admitted that our country’s intelligence resources lack the technical means to monitor the development of the nuclear weapons programs of other nations, or terrorist organizations.
Russia – China- North Korea -Iran – Syria – ISIS – Al Qaeda. What do these seven geopolitical foes have in common? They both hate and disrespect the United States. What if one of these bad actors decided to make it our problem with an attack on the heartland along the lines of Pearl Harbor? Is that so implausible? Remember 9/11. Our enemies consider a high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic (HEMP) attack as the ultimate weapon. No bombs. No bullets. No swordfights. Just a few keystrokes on the computer, and we’re done.
China leads the way in EMP research and application. The lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse and high-powered microwave weapons are now part of China’s shashoujian, or assassin’s mace arsenal—weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to level the playing field with U.S. military forces. Military strategists have long predicted that the first attack in China’s Assassin’s Mace arsenal would be a Super-EMP.
WE CAN PREVENT AN EMP CATASTROPHE: The Congressional EMP Commission spent eight years developing a plan to protect all infrastructure from EMP – a plan that would also mitigate threats from cyberattack, sabotage, and natural disasters. The Commission estimated in 2008 it would cost $2 billion to harden the grid’s critical nodes. The remainder of the proposed plan could have been implemented within 5 years, at a cost of $20 billion. These sums are modest when compared with the unimaginably high costs associated with trying to recover from a HEMP attack. To put this in perspective had Washington adopted the Commission’s plan, it would have been completed at the time of this book’s release. By comparison $20 billion, the high estimate of the Commission’s suggested plan, is equal to 17 days of interest on our national debt. The cost, however, has been an excuse for inaction.
Source: The Threat of EMP by Bobby Akart
THE POLITICS SURROUNDING EMP DEFENSE: The Congressionally mandated blue-ribbon Commission to Assess the Threat of the U.S. from EMP Attack, established by Congress in 2000 known as the EMP Commission. The EMP Commission has been warning about the existential threat for nearly 20 years. So alarming is the looming EMP threat that the Commission has gone above and beyond the call of duty, made extraordinary efforts, been waging a war against ignorance, a war against a stubborn and irresponsible U.S. Government bureaucracy, a war against powerful and dishonest electric power industry lobbies, and a war against press bias and disinformation, to save the American people from a possible imminent EMP catastrophe.
Why have the recommendations of the EMP Commission to protect the nation’s life-sustaining critical infrastructures, and the lives of 330 million Americans met with such resistance? Fear and a failure of strategic imagination, as described in the 9/11 Commission Report, are major factors. EMP is still so little known and understood, in part because the EMP threat was deeply classified until made widely available by the EMP Commission reports (2004, 2008, 2017). Many ignorant journalists, academics, scientists, and electric power industry executives, companies, and industry organizations, still claim the EMP threat is non-existent or greatly exaggerated.
The Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security do not want to offend powerful electric monopolies, and their “partners” and patrons: corporations who prefer to let the public carry the risk of utilities failing on a large scale. An example of this risk/reward relationship is evident in California, where in 2019 electric monopolies tried to escape responsibility for destructive wildfires and rolling blackouts caused by their poorly maintained equipment.
Source: EMP Commissioner’s Report authored by Dr. William R. Graham and Ambassador R. James Woolsey; published in The Power and the Light by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry (2019)
Dr. William R. Graham was the Chairman of the EMP Commission served as White House Science Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, ran NASA, was on the defense science team that discovered the EMP phenomenon after the STARFISH PRIME nuclear test (1962) and has been contributing to the defense of the United States from EMP since 1963.
Ambassador R. James Woolsey was a Senior Advisor to the EMP Commission is a national security and energy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence who headed the Central Intelligence Agency (1993 - 1995), held a variety of government positions including Under Secretary of the Navy (1977 - 1979), and participated in treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union, including as Chief Negotiator of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.
CONCLUSION: In 2008, the bipartisan EMP Commission testified before Congress:
- The current strategy for recovery from a failure of the electric grid leaves us ill-prepared to respond effectively to a manmade or naturally occurring EMP event that would potentially result in damage to vast numbers of components nearly simultaneously on an unprecedented geographic scale.
- Should the electrical power system be lost for any substantial period, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic to society, including potential casualties of more than 90% of the population, according to the Chairman of the EMP Commission.
- Most experts predict that the occurrence of severe geomagnetic storms is inevitable it is only a matter of when.
Lobbyists argued that we don’t think there is a likelihood that a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP)will take place in the United States, and therefore we don’t want to go through the expense of hardening the power grid against it.
EFFECTS ON PEOPLE: What would life look like for your family if this happened? There would be no heat or air-conditioning for your home. Water would no longer be pumped into most homes. Your computer would not work, nor would the internet. There would be no television or radio. ATMs would shut down, and there would be no banking or credit card transactions. Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning. Most people would be unable to do their jobs without power and employment would collapse, bringing the economy to a standstill. Hospitals would not be able to function, and a nation dependent upon prescription medication would have to do without. All refrigeration would shut down, and frozen foods in our supermarkets and homes would spoil. Most vehicles would shut down. Most Government services would collapse.
The consequences of a grid down scenario would be felt immediately. A disruption of this scale could cripple critical infrastructures and hinder the delivery of day-to-day necessities, because of the interconnectivity of telecommunication networks and the electrical dependence of most cities, government agencies, businesses, households, and individuals. It could require a long recovery period. To assess human consequences, the concern is one in which electricity, telecommunication and electronics are out of service for an extended period. Our politicians are unwilling to admit this, but the biggest threat to America is not the EMP attack itself, but the resulting societal collapse. Unfortunately, what one should fear the most is their fellow man.
Source: The Threat of EMP by Bobby Akart.
CURRENT STATUS: In Texas a bill to protect Texas electric grid from all hazards – including EMP, cyber warfare and sabotage – recently passed the state Senate. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electricity infrastructure, proved in February that they and the utilities are not even prepared to cope with a sever ice storm, let alone the existential threats from EMP and cyber warfare.
In South Carolina, Ambassador Henry Cooper, a former Air Force officer, EMP expert and engineer, is working with Duke Energy to protect a nuclear reactor from EMP. Ambassador Cooper says he has lost faith that Washington will ever act to protect the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructure from EMP and cyber warfare. According to Cooper, if America is to be protected, it won’t be done by an incompetent federal government but by the people and states, working “from the bottom up.” The recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack appears to prove the ambassador is right. The official story is that Russian hackers made a ransomware attack on the business side of Colonial Pipeline’s information technology network, moving the owners, Koch Industries, to shut down the pipeline to exercise “an abundance of caution.” So supposedly, turning ff the 5,500-mile artery that supplies 45% of petroleum to the eastern U.S. for civilian and military use – causing shortages and panic buying – was self-inflicted.
So why is Colonial Pipeline vulnerable to Russian hackers, and the electric grid vulnerable to ice storms, and all the nation’s life-sustaining critical infrastructure vulnerable to EMP and cyberattacks? Since President George W. Bush’s administration established the Department of Homeland Security, protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure supposedly has been high priority. But in truth, little has been done.
Source: 5/21/2021 article in The Hill by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry.
“On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive order that modernizes Federal Government defenses and improves the security of technology … On July 28, the President issued a National Security memorandum establishing voluntary cybersecurity goals that clearly outline our expectations for owners and operators of critical infrastructure. The Administration has also engaged with the private sector on the importance of prioritizing cybersecurity as a central part of their efforts to maintain business continuity. And internationally, the Biden Administration has rallied G7 countries to hold accountable nations who harbor ransomware criminals and to update NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years. The purpose of today’s meeting was to discuss opportunities to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity in partnership and individually. Several participants announce commitments and initiatives including:”
- The Biden Administration announced that the National Institute of Standards and Technology will collaborate with industry and other partners to develop a new framework to improve the security of the technology supply chain.
- The Biden Administration also announced the formal expansion of the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative to a second major sector: natural gas pipelines. The Initiative has already improved the cybersecurity of more than 150 utilities that serve 90 million Americans.
- Google announced it will invest $10 billion over the next five years to expand zero-trust programs, help secure the software supply chain, and enhance open-source security.
- IBM announced it will train 150,000 people in cybersecurity skills over the next three years and will partner with more than 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities to establish Cybersecurity Leadership Centers to grow a more diverse cyber workforce.
- Microsoft announced it will invest $20 billion over the next five years to accelerate efforts to integrate cyber security by design and deliver advanced security solutions.
- Amazon announced it will make available to the public at no charge the security awareness training it offers its employees.
NOTE: I could find only one reference to any EMP initiatives by the Biden administration and assume that the Trump 2019 EMP Executive Order was rescinded. That reference was in the meta description under “Initiative to Bolster the Nation’s Cybersecurity – The White House” with the URL of whitehouse.gov 2021/08/25 which I assume relates to the fact sheet shown above. The meta description on 9/1/2021 read as follows:
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| 6_china_6l_emp_--_segment_6.pdf |