About a month ago, my 12-year-old son and I made his first-ever trip to the NHRA Drag Races near our home.
It’s something that I always did with my dad, and I have looked forward to taking him ever since he was born. It’s a typical father-and-son day, wrought with loud, fast cars, terrible food, and the occasional waft of nitromethane fuel in the air.
The drive is about an hour from our house, so the discussions on the way were mostly racing focused. Since it was his first time there, I insisted we arrive early to tour the pits, look around, and let him get a feel for the atmosphere.
Drag racing is unique from other events he’s attended, like baseball, hockey, and basketball games. He seemed to have an interest in racing, so this was an opportunity to show him something different.
We arrived early. With the event kicking off around 10:30, we pulled into the track area around 9 am. What evaded me from research on the event was that only cash was accepted in the parking lots.
Being a moderately young-ish person (45 is the new 25, and don’t you forget it), I rarely carry cash. I rolled up to an attendant and asked, “What if I don’t have cash?”
“There’s a gas station about five miles from here.”
Uh oh.
So off we went, out of the track location, traversing through the hills of the rural Reading, PA, vicinity to find an ATM. Fifteen minutes later, a local Sunoco saved the day. I took out $100, plus the $6.50 ATM fee, and headed back to the track.
We arrived with some time to spare, enjoyed a long, hot day of racing, seeing cars routinely eclipse 300 MPH with no major accidents, ate terrible food, and breathed a bit of nitromethane (it’s a requirement).
Incidentally, inside the venue, MOST of the vendors accepted ZERO cash transactions, except for the track concession itself. The food trucks, merchandise tents, etc. were all cashless.
Most other events I’ve attended since the pandemic have been cashless — including the aforementioned baseball, hockey, and basketball games. It’s a convenient new deal with Apple and Google Pay options, card readers with RFID chips, paying with a smartwatch at a vending machine, and the list goes on.
The more I see this, the more I become increasingly concerned of cyber threats and an instantaneously broken economy with the threat of EMP (electromagnetic pulse).
The threat looms large for financial institutions, with JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup having combined assets of over $9.8 TRILLION. The likelihood of you having some sort of stake in one of those banks is a near certainty.
An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy that can damage or upset electrical devices, telecommunications networks, and large-scale infrastructure like the power grid.
An EMP can be natural or man-made, with the natural phenomenon coming from solar flares. A man-made EMP, however, usually comes from a nuclear bomb, which ionizes air molecules, creating a large and powerful electromagnetic field.
With the lack of cash and reliance on digital payments in society today, the threat of an attack on these institutions is a sobering thought. A cyberattack — typically coming from an EMP to literally shut down the infrastructure of a major financial institution — is real and closer than you think.
And it’s not just money. Each week, 140 million American citizens get their groceries from Walmart. An attack on the infrastructure of the largest grocery chain in the United States would be devastating, crippling not only the retailer itself, but the grocery markets that are local to Walmart stores across the country, which would become overloaded, running out of food or struggling to deliver goods.
An EMP, detonated high above the ground, could affect electronic devices with a several thousand-mile radius. A powerful enough EMP event above a midwestern state like Kansas could affect the entire United States.
And this doesn’t necessarily have to come from a nuclear bomb or explosion. Obviously, if nuclear war is in effect, ordering your Lucky Charms from Amazon isn’t your highest priority.
However, a non-nuclear EMP (NNEMP), which is the more likely scenario, could be utilized in a more localized fashion. Strategic placement of these smaller yet still effective weapons would be just as devastating.
So, what’s the solution? Take all your money out of the banks and hide it under the mattress? Invest in a safe and anchor it to the floor of your basement and hope nobody ever finds it (or hope you never forget the combination)?
Give all your money to me, the author, in the hopes that I have some great plan?
No. None of these are viable options.
In reality, our financial institutions, military installations, and companies that keep the heartbeat of our nation pumping are all protected against this.
Shielded cabinets (LOTS of them), surge suppression, filter banks, and shielded buildings are a small part of the mitigation efforts performed by these companies, which generally yield solid results against this type of situation.
However, if you were walking down the street with your laptop, a wallet full of credit and debit cards, a smartphone, and a smartwatch, and an EMP does detonate (let’s assume a non-nuclear type), there’s a good chance that one of your devices would fail. But, your money and assets are still likely safe.
Ideally, all the major institutions mentioned above utilize some sort of compliance testing and analysis regarding the threat of EMP. From the filters to the cabinet structure to the overall data center assembly and architecture, the most critical path through all of this is actual testing.
One test is worth a thousand analyses, and the risk is lowered through full compliance testing.
We never want to wake up in a world where the threats have become realized. However, if the right tactics are used to mitigate the risks, we can rest assured that our money is there when we need it.
Because we always want to be able to order our Lucky Charms from Amazon when we run out.
