When a database problem hit Amazon Web Services on Monday, the disruption to its cloud service lingered for most of the day. During the outage, everyone from Fortnite players and Ring doorbell cameras to Delta Airlines flights and Starbucks orders were affected.
National security analyst Bob Maginnis tells AFN the cloud-service outage is a real-life reminder how we depend on the internet in our daily lives.
“We would become a very, very distressed place to live if, in fact, we lost connectivity,” he says.
In a statement, AWS said the “root cause” of the outage was an internal subsystem that monitors the “health” of its network load balancers. In more laymen’s terms, the part of its network that monitors server traffic loads crashed.
The outage also affected Coinbase; messaging service Signal; payment app Venmo; Disney; trading app Robinhood; and news outlets The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
America’s electric grid that keeps the lights on is already famously vulnerable to attack, especially from an electromagnetic pulse. If a U.S. foe such as China detonated a high-altitude nuke, a 2004 congressional study ominously warned a single detonation could kill 90% of the U.S. population within a year from starvation, disease, and unrest.
Almost a quarter-century after that report became public, Maginnis says a massive cyber-attack could also bring the country to its knees without a shot being fired.
“We could return to the Stone Age overnight,” he warns, “if you don't have city water and your electricity goes off. All of the infrastructure of a modern society.”
Regarding our adversary and trading partner, China, Maginnis says nobody should be surprised if there are backdoors and boobytraps installed by its cyber scientists that leave the U.S. vulnerable to attack.
A Washington Times story, published last year, quoted U.S. intelligence sources that warned of China’s offensive cyber capabilities that are targeting vital U.S. infrastructure.
