A “Super-Powerful” EMP Attack: North Korea’s Newest Weapon Against The U.S.

 

The dynamics of the standoff between the US and North Korea have shifted dramatically in the past week.

First, the North started with an unexpectedly sharp provocation – launching a missile over the Japanese island of Hokkaido – before following that up with its sixth nuclear test. Also, judging by the size the earthquake detected in the country’s mountainous North on Sunday morning, North Korea may have been telling the truth when it said it conducted what it described as its first hydrogen bomb test.

And while the North bragged about the weapon’s “great destructive power” in a TV broadcast, what caught analysts’ attention was a mention of a different tactic: detonating  an H-bomb at high altitude to create an electromagnetic pulse that could knock out parts of the US electrical grid.

Pentagon Links Chinese Cyber Security Firm to Beijing Spy Service

Joint Staff warns of cyber espionage dangers

A Chinese cyber security firm is covertly working with Beijing’s Ministry of State Security intelligence service in conducting cyber espionage operations, according to Pentagon intelligence officials.

The company known as Boyusec, officially the Bo Yu Guangzhou Information Technology Co., is also working with China’s global telecommunications company Huawei Technologies, which has been identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as linked to the Chinese military.

Bill Gertz: Recent Russian Flybys Are ‘Unprecedented’

 

Senior Editor Bill Gertz discussed his recent stories on recent Russian jets buzzing United States Naval ships as well as threats to our electrical grid Wednesday evening on The Steve Malzberg Show on NewsmaxTV.

Malzberg asked Gertz how common the flybys are. On Thursday, a Russian jet, R-135, had come dangerously close to a U.S. surveillance plane. The plane had come within 50 feet of the naval ship.

FBI Warns of Cyber Threat to Electric Grid

DHS intel report downplayed cyber threat to power grid

Three months after a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report downplayed the threat of a cyber attack against the U.S. electrical grid, DHS and the FBI began a nationwide program warning of the dangers faced by U.S. utilities from damaging cyber attacks like the recent hacking against Ukraine’s power grid.

The nationwide campaign by DHS and the FBI began March 31 and includes 12 briefings and online webinars for electrical power infrastructure companies and others involved in security, with sessions in eight U.S. cities, including a session next week in Washington.

Mike Rogers: China, Iran, and Russia Launching Cyber Attacks Against U.S.

House Intelligence Committee chair says $2 trillion has been lost

Chinese government-backed hackers have cost the United States nearly $2 trillion in “lost and stolen property” that was seized through illicit Internet attacks, Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Monday.

The theft of proprietary information and technology by the Chinese constitutes “the largest transfer of wealth illegally in the world’s history,” according to Rogers, who warned that the United States is not prepared to combat these cyber threats.

U.S. On Alert for Nuclear Blast Overhead

Imagine, with the intelligence community being as slow as it already is, if there already are dozens of EMP satellites hanging over the continental United States waiting for the command to just fall out of the sky and send the nation back 200 years. There is no defense against that.

The concern is so great that U.S. officials who watch North Korea closely are continually monitoring the status of the North Korean “space launch vehicle,” whose status could suggest a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States.

They are aware of the three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could be a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be deorbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and exploded at a high altitude, creating an EMP effect.