Scenario 15

Cyber Attack

Casualties	None directly
Infrastructure Damage	Cyber
Evacuations/Displaced Persons	None
Contamination	None
Economic Impact	Hundreds of millions of dollars
Potential for Multiple Events	Yes
Recovery Timeline	Months

Scenario General Description

In this scenario, the Universal Adversary (UA) – represented by the Legion of Futurity, a left-wing Marxist group with anarchist elements and a strong anti-capitalist stand – conducts cyber attacks that affect several parts of the internet and the nation’s financial infrastructure over the course of several weeks. Specifically, credit card processing facilities are hacked and numbers are released to the internet causing 20 million cards to be cancelled; Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) fail nearly simultaneously across the nation; major companies report that payroll checks are not being received by workers; and several large pension and mutual fund companies have computer malfunctions so severe that they are unable to operate for more than a week. Individually, these attacks are not dangerous, but combined, they shatter faith in the stability of the system. Underneath these more visible attacks, a stream of direct attacks against Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Domain Name Servers (DNSs), and trusted information providers plays out to further undermine user confidence.