EMP

"Friendly" EMP generator to help protect electronics against electromagnetic attack

Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons might be a staple of movies and video games, but they pose a very real threat. With just about every facet of modern society reliant on electronic devices, Sandia National Laboratories has developed a "friendly" EMP generator to make sure military and civilian equipment can withstand such potentially devastating bursts of electromagnetic energy.

First studied in earnest during the early US atomic weapon tests in the 1940s and '50s, an EMP is one weapon of mass destruction that, fortunately, has yet to be used in war or by terrorists. The principle is that detonating a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere can generate a massive burst of radio energy that can overload electricity grids, and electric and electronic circuits and burn them out.

Over the decades, a lot of research has gone into EMPs and it makes for very unpleasant reading. A single EMP attack against even a country the size of the United States would have a devastating effect.

EMP

Short-circuiting the electromagnetic threat

Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a major threat to the continued existence of America. An enemy could destroy our nation simply by detonating a single nuclear weapon above the atmosphere over our country. All our enemies, including some terrorist groups, have, or can acquire, this capability. The electromagnetic pulse from this detonation would destroy our national electric power grid, and it would take many months or years to rebuild it. Without electricity, virtually all our everyday life-support systems would remain paralyzed, and millions would die of disease or starvation.

Protection from this threat would be relatively simple and affordable, but for decades our leaders have refused to take action. This is because of near-total disagreement over the threat. The tragedy is that those who support protection against EMP know what they’re talking about, and those who deny the threat don’t. One would think this type of dispute would be easily resolvable. But not in this case. Here’s why.

EMP was discovered — almost by accident — by our nuclear weapons scientists during the Cold War. It loomed as an immense threat, and these scientists plunged into understanding it. Everything about EMP was highly classified — at least secret, often top secret. A great many of our underground nuclear weapon tests in the 1970s and 1980s focused on EMP. They were intensively instrumented. Progressively, EMP came to be understood as a complex scientific phenomenon. But it was still highly classified, and the only individuals who had access to scientific data on EMP were government nuclear weapons scientists.

EMP

EMP Risk is 'Not a Sideshow': Why One Cyber Attack Could Wipe Out 90% of US Population

In the past eight months, federal authorities have issued public warnings about foreign hackers penetrating the US  power grid and other critical infrastructure. Cybersecurity experts say the intent is to plant digital grenades in those systems until they decide to pull the pin.

These attacks are from an enemy who may never step on US soil. But they could cripple vital systems like electricity, food, water, and manufacturing. 

"Right now we are tracking about eight different teams that specifically target industrial networks," said Robert Lee, Founder, and CEO of Dragos, Inc.
     
Lee spent five years working at the National Security Agency and Pentagon Cyber Command before forming Dragos, Inc.

EMP

No, North Korea Can't Kill 90 Percent of Americans

Scientists have known about the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) for decades. EMP is a burst of electromagnetic radiation sent flying through the atmosphere by a nuclear or thermonuclear explosion. This radiation gradually fizzles out, but electrical objects near the detonation can suffer effects ranging from simply being turned off to having their circuitry shorted out.

...Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control scholar, wrote in Foreign Policy in 2013, "(the) EMP Commission exposed 37 cars and 18 trucks to EMP effects in a laboratory environment. While EMP advocates claim the results of an EMP attack would be "planes falling from the sky, cars stalling on the roadways, electrical networks failing, food rotting," the actual results were much more modest. Of the 55 vehicles exposed to EMP, six at the highest levels of exposure needed to be restarted. A few more showed "nuisance" damage to electronics, such as blinking dashboard displays."

EMP

Electromagnetic Pulse Against UAV’s

According to South Korean military officials, the country has been developing a technology to bring down unmanned North Korean aircraft using electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

The Agency for Defense Development (ADD) has developed a directional, high-powered EMP generator, and it has been trying to devise ways to implement it against small North Korean unmanned aerial vehicles.

An EMP occurs when a nuclear device is detonated at a high altitude, potentially damaging the power grid and rendering most electronic devices useless.

According to yonhapnews, the ADD is studying unmanned aircraft’s potential weaknesses against EMP. The EMP generator and its potential defense against drones were presented during a conference hosted by the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology recently. The ADD is also preparing for research on neutralizing North Korean UAVs with other technologies, including the use of artificial intelligence to detect and track drones.

EMP 

LETTER: Don’t ignore terrorist EMP threat

We know from U.S. studies that are now declassified that terrorists with simple ballistic missiles or even a dirty bomb can launch such missiles off our shores — say from a freighter — in a relatively low-earth orbit against us and bring us back to the Stone Age for weeks, months or years. This is not hyperbole on my part. It is reality, especially if you count our nation-state adversaries.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Subcommittee Report on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security released on March 8, 2008. Senator Kyl, a leading Republican, noted the following in the summary: “The subject, as I said, is the electromagnetic pulse and its potential as a tool of terrorism.” He followed: “That an EMP attack could potentially shock, damage, or even destroy our electrical systems is indeed possible.” The CIA indicated that nuclear material had been stolen by possible terrorists in the latter stages of the Soviet Union.

EMP

U.S. Air Force confirms Boeing’s electromagnetic pulse weapon

For the last few years, the creative minds of Hollywood had seemingly outpaced the reality of technological and scientific advances in the weapons field. But no longer. Stepping out of the realm of science fiction and into reality is the joint U.S. Air Force and Boeing electromagnetic pulse weapon, capable of targeting and destroying electrical systems without the collateral damage often associated with traditional firepower. As Don Cheadle noted in the ever-relevant Ocean’s 11, this new weapon “is a bomb — but without the bomb.”