FBI investigating multiple threats to mid west water supply systems... Is the National Geographic movie American Blackout - just before Grid Ex 2 'Drill " just very timely or meant to foreshadow actual events .....prepping for a power grid breakdown - what to consider doing now !

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/2013/10/alert-fbi-investigating-threats-to-midwest-water-supply-systems-2494092.html

The Associated Press reports that the FBI and other agencies are in the process of investigating multiple threats to Midwest Water Supply Systems. Specifically, the FBI has named Wichita, Kansas as a target, but utility facilities have also been put on alert in other Midwestern cities.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of the threats in the past two days and has contacted the water supply facilities and law enforcement offices for the municipalities, said Bridget Patton, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Kansas City, Missouri.
Patton declined to discuss the nature of the threats or the number of cities affected. She said investigators had been sent out in response to the reports, but offered no details.
“We were made aware of the threat,” Patton said. “We have not been able to substantiate any of the threats.”
Wichita city officials warned employees in emails to be on guard for suspicious activities. City officials also told residents the water is safe to drink and the public will be notified immediately if this changes.
Wichita Police Lieutenant Doug Nolte said Friday that the city had taken steps to keep the city’s water supply safe, but would not describe what measures had been taken.

The Wichita water utility plants serve about 500,000 people, but many millions may be affected should systems in multiple Midwest cities fail or come under attack simultaneously.

In 2011 cyber security McAfee issued a warning titled In the Dark: Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks, in which they noted that all critical infrastructure systems connected to the internetcould be compromised by rogue attacks resulting in shutdowns or malfunctions.

The sectors on which this report focuses — power, oil, gas, and water — may well be the first targets for a serious cyberattack.
What we found is that they are not ready. The professionals charged with protecting these systems report that the threat has accelerated — but the response has not. Cyberexploits and attacks are already widespread. Whether it is cybercriminals engaged in theft or extortion, or foreign governments preparing sophisticated exploits like Stuxnet, cyberattackers have targeted critical infrastructure.

In the case of water utilities, if hackers were to take control of the computers that maintain safe water levels and chemical treatment they could potentially poison the water supplies of millions. In such a case people could go to sleep like any normal night, wake up in the morning and have a glass of water, and be poisoned by any number of chemical or biological agents that have been released into the water supplies.

Hackers have already broken into water utility computer systems recently, despite assurances that the systems are safe. In November of 2011 a Stuxnet-style virus infected the physical components of the Springfield, Illinois water utility plant and shut down water pumps, demonstrating that not only can systems be infiltrated from outside of protected networks, but that the physical equipment can be overtaken.

But it’s not just the computer systems. There is a woeful disregard for perimeter security in and around critial infrastructure assets around the United States, including water plants.

Security around national water reservoirs may not be as safe as we thought:

In a time where people talk all the time about droughts, 21 year old Josh Seater has cost the city of Portland Oregon 8 million gallons of drinking water.
After a night on the town, a heavily intoxicated Seater began urinating a water reservoir.  “I didn’t know it was a water supply, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it, I thought it was a sewage plant”.
The cost of Josh’s drunken behavior has cost the Portland Water Bureau $36,000, as the 8 million gallons have had to be completely drained away.

While TSA gaterapes grannies in diapers at our local airports and steams ahead on expanding enhanced pat-downs and searches to all public venues including train stations, sporting events and malls, the real security holes are completely ignored.

With so many billions of dollars being spent on homeland security, Americans have been left with a false sense of security. The government tells us they are protecting us, and most people simply take this at face value.

In reality, even if the government was  efficiently deploying its resources for effectively securing critical infrastructure, the fact is that nothing can ever be 100% secure. This is evidenced by recent comments from outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who warned that a widespread cyber attack on our national power grid and other infrastructure is not only guaranteed, but imminent.

In previous comments, Napolitano, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has advised Americans to stockpile at least two (2) weeks of essential supplies, including food and fresh drinking water, citing concerns that emergency responders could be overwhelmed in the event of a widespread emergency.

Failure to prepare for short and long-term disaster could be deadly. Most Americans have about three days worth of food supplies and almost no reserve water supplies or methods for filtering water should the water supply be compromised.

As we saw with Hurricane Sandy, any disruptions to the normal flow of supplies or commerce would lead to a breakdown within 72 hours as those affected struggle to acquire limited resources.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/electrical-grid-called-vulnerable-to-power-shutdown/?_r=5&

OCTOBER 18, 2013, 9:00 AM 13 Comments

Electrical Grid Is Called Vulnerable to Power Shutdown

By NICOLE PERLROTH

Stuart Isett for The New York TimesTwo researchers discovered that they could freeze, or crash, the software that monitors a substation, thereby blinding control center operators from the power grid.

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Over the past few months, the discoveries of two engineers have led to a steady trickle of alarms from the Department of Homeland Security concerning a threat to the nation’s power grid. Yet hardly anyone has noticed.

The advisories concern vulnerabilities in the communication protocol used by power and water utilities to remotely monitor control stations around the country. Using those vulnerabilities, an attacker at a single, unmanned power substation could inflict a widespread power outage.

Still, the two engineers who discovered the vulnerability say little is being done.

Adam Crain and Chris Sistrunk do not specialize in security. The engineers say they hardly qualify as security researchers. But seven months ago, Mr. Crain wrote software to look for defects in an open-source software program. The program targeted a very specific communications protocol called DNP3, which is predominantly used by electric and water companies, and plays a crucial role in so-called S.C.A.D.A. (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems. Utility companies use S.C.A.D.A. systems to monitor far-flung power stations from a control center, in part because it allows them to remotely diagnose problems rather than wait for a technician to physically drive out to a station and fix it.

Mr. Crain ran his security test on his open-source DNP3 program and didn’t find anything wrong. Frustrated, he tested a third-party vendor’s program to make sure his software was working. The first program he targeted belonged to Triangle MicroWorks, a Raleigh, North Carolina based company that sells source code to large vendors of S.C.A.D.A. systems. It broke instantly.

Mr. Crain called Mr. Sistrunk, an electrical engineer, to see if he could help Mr. Crain test his program on other systems.

“When Adam told me he broke Triangle, I worried everything else was broken,” said Mr. Sistrunk.

Over the course of one week last April, the two tested Mr. Crain’s software across 16 vendors’ systems. They did not find a single system they couldn’t break.

By the end of the week, the two had compiled a 20-page report replete with vulnerabilities in 16 different system vendors for the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, I.C.S.-C.E.R.T., which notifies vendors of vulnerabilities and issues public advisories.

And then, they waited. It would take I.C.S.-C.E.R.T. another four months to issue a public advisory for Triangle MicroWorks’ system.

Triangle MicroWorks’ engineering manager Greg Godlevski said that during those four months, the company developed a number of its own tests to look for defects in its software and fix them. Mr. Godlevski said the company waited for confirmation from Mr. Crain that the problem had been fixed, then met with I.C.S.-C.E.R.T. several times to review and comment on the government advisory.

“We take any reported problems discovered in our products very seriously,” Mr. Godlevski said. “We expend a lot of effort adding levels of security to our protocols and ensuring that they comply to the published specifications.”

D.H.S. did not return a request for comment.

Over the course of those four months, Mr. Crain and Mr. Sistrunk  found vulnerabilities in an additional nine vendors’ systems.

Like most security alerts, there are some caveats to this concern for the safety of electric facilities: Mr. Peterson’s company, Digital Bond, sells consulting services to assess and improve the security of S.C.A.D.A. systems.

Mr. Crain also has an interest. In March, he plans to release a free version of his security test, but for now he is charging vendors to use his program. (Mr. Crain would not disclose pricing, since it differed for each vendor based on vendor size, saying only that he charged in the “thousands” though he said he charged far less than commercial services like WurldTech Security, which charges tens of thousands of dollars for similar programs.)

“We haven’t found anything we haven’t broken yet,” Mr. Crain said in an interview. At minimum, the two discovered that they could freeze, or crash, the software that monitors a substation, thereby blinding control center operators from the power grid. Mr. Crain likened that capability to “a bank robber being in a bank vault with the camera frozen.”

In the case of one vendor, Mr. Crain found that he could actually infiltrate a power station’s control center from afar. An attacker could use that capability to insert malware to take over the system, and like Stuxnet, the computer worm that took out 20 percent of Iran’s centrifuges, inflict actual physical harm.

“This is low-hanging fruit,” said Mr. Crain. “It doesn’t require some kind of hacker mastermind to understand the protocol and do this.”

What makes the vulnerabilities particularly troubling, experts say, is that traditional firewalls are ill-equipped to stop them. “When the master crashes it can no longer monitor or control any and all of the substations,” said Dale Peterson, a former N.S.A. employee who founded Digital Bond, a security firm that focuses on infrastructure. “There is no way to stop this with a firewall and other perimeter security device today. You have to let DNP3 responses through.”

Even more troubling, Mr. Peterson said, is that most DNP3 communications aren’t regulated. The original version of DNP3 worked on serial communications — a way of transmitting data usually found in things like coaxial cables — and is still widely deployed in large systems, particularly substations around the country. But current cybersecurity regulations, governed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (N.E.R.C.) Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee (C.I.P.C.) are focused on Internet Protocols, or I.P. protocols, and specifically exclude serial communications and the equipment that uses them from meeting any security requirements.

“Why isn’t D.H.S., N.E.R.C., and the DNP3 committee telling vendors they need to fix this now and utility owners they need to get this patched A.S.A.P.?” Mr. Peterson said.

To date, D.H.S. has posted nine advisories, several of them for software used by major players in the electric sector.

“This is a systemic problem,” Mr. Crain said. “Most of the top five utilities use this software and just because a patch is available, doesn’t necessarily mean that utilities are applying them.”

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/2013/10/natgeos-american-blackout-examines-u-s-without-power-2494076.html

What would you do if the world suddenly went dark?

That is exactly what NatGeo’s original movie American Blackout – which premieres Sunday, Oct. 27, seeks to discover. The power grid collapses following a cyber attack, forcing the nation into an immediate crisis. Although the man-made disaster lasts just 10 days, civil unrest, economic turmoil and a horrific amount of deaths still occur.

The National Geographic movie is extremely timely. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, the first ever nationwide power grid down drill will take place on Nov. 13-14.

American Blackout director Jonathan Rudd stated during a Q&A session for the media that a cyber attack was specifically chosen as the power grid disabler because such a scenario is no longer science fiction. As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported earlier this year, the United States experienced a 68 percent increase in “cyber incidents” at federal agencies during 2012. The DHS also warned that a cyber activity increase in America appears to include Middle Eastern nations such as Iran.

Rudd also said:

“The research drove the narrative. This film is obviously a drama, but we were determined to be as informed as possible and we spent countless hours trying to get it right.

Source: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/10/18/natgeos-american-blackout-examines-us-without-power/

http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/10/15/personal-preparation-for-grid-ex-ii/

Personal Preparation for Grid Ex II

October 15, 2013 - Conspiracy, Featured, Main - Tagged: dave hodges, false flag, Farm Wars, FEMA, genocide, government, martial law, new world order, police state, the common sense show, tyranny - 58 comments

Dave Hodges

October 15, 2013

The Common Sense Show

Grid Ex II, November 13-14

The economy is coming down. It is not a matter of if, but when. We have a 17 trillion dollar deficit, a 222 trillion dollar unfunded liabilities for critical social welfare programs and a crushing 1 quadrillion derivatives debt. There is no reversing course economically. The only solution is debt repudiation, but the globalists are not going to let this happen without a fight. And before they allow the people to galvanize and even possibly join forces with a disenchanted military, they will perpetrate a false flag event(s) designed to put the country under control as the forces of martial law are rolled out.

It is impossible to predict what the false flag event will be. However, there are some good candidates, and none better than the Grid Ex II drill coming up next month.

Many have written to me asking what they should do to prepare for a potential false flag attack, such as the Grid Ex II “simulated” blackout drill scheduled to begin on November 13th.

There are no foolproof approaches to the coming disaster, but I am going to cover what I am going to do in preparation for possible negative outcomes from events such as the Grid Ex II “simulated” power grid take-down drill. 

What If Grid Ex II Is A Designed False Flag?

Since the dawn of the electrification of the American society, we have we never been faced with a complete shutdown of the power grid. However, as I have discovered, the government has indeed planned for such an eventuality.  

In August of 2009, I attended a Congressman Trent Franks Town Hall Meeting at the Community Church of Joy in Glendale, AZ.  Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) produced a video which hypothesized that if terrorists were to detonate two nuclear weapons above the mid-continent United States, the resulting EMP attack would wipe out all electronics. The resulting projections estimate that 90% of the American people would be dead within two years. From this presentation, I created a hypothetical simulation game which recreates a major catastrophe and then poses critical questions, based upon several scenarios to the immediate threats to individual survival. In the four years that I have used this game as a teaching tool, which illustrates the fragility of society, I have formed some conclusions about some of the principles which can serve to enhance survival following a disaster, particularly in the critical first 72 hours.

Much of what I am going to present is derived from this simulation which examined the impact of a major event upon 15 key areas (e.g. medical, education, military, law enforcement, etc) and how people can best respond to the challenges.

What If the Economy Is Collapsed in the Midst of a Blackout?

Congressman Frank’s Congressional military appropriations video also estimated that a 50% mortality rate would occur in the event of a total economic breakdown without an EMP attack. If civil war accompanies an economic breakdown, the casualty estimates would be impossible to gauge. Either way, the odds are stacked against survival. Preparation does not guarantee survival, but if one does not prepare, one is sealing their own fate. And most of all, do not forget your spirituality, you may need a miracle in the days ahead. If society experiences a meltdown, the odds for survival are not good for the masses.  

Foretelling

NBC Hit Show, Revolution

Isn’t it interesting that the TV series, Revolution, has so accurately depicted the bedlam that would follow a catastrophic loss of power. The biggest threats to survival will be a lack of food and water, roving gangsters in search of resources, disease resulting from a lack of sanitation, trying to escape the war zones of America’s inner cities, having enough life-saving medication, surviving disease resulting from a lack of sanitation and on and on and on.

Water

Most people can survive for a number of weeks without food, but without water you will die in just a few days. Subsequently, where would you procure water if your taps run dry? 

If you do not have a plan, this would most likely be the probable cause of your death. Do you have an abundant supply of clean water near your home? Do you have the ability to boil water if you needed to purify it (i.e. a supply of matches, the ability to make fire to boil water)? Gathering water is your number one concern. Do you have a swimming pool? If you are one of the few that has a swimming pool, you need to be able to defend the water because your house will be a target.

Water purification tablets are also critical because the water you have access to in a crisis, may not be suitable for drinking. So you may find that water purification tablets and a water filter will prove immeasurably important.

Food

Most families could not last longer than a month on what they have in their house right now. When the economic collapse comes, how long could you survive on what you have? 

You need to start growing food right now. Having your own garden, both in and out of your house is critically important, for if you don’t, when your family runs out of food, you will suddenly find yourselves competing with the desperate mobs of hungry people who are looting the stores in the first 24 hours and then  roaming the streets, within the first 72 hours, looking for victims in order to steal their food.

Begin to store food, now! Store seeds and plants, now. Seeds will be the first item to disappear. So, begin to gather them, right now. Of course, if you are hungry, the government would be happy to take you to a safe refuge, a detention camp. The question is, will you come out alive?

Sanitation

On individual’s personal preparation list, sanitation is often a forgotten item. However, it could quickly become one of you most immediate and deadly threats.

In the third world, the leading cause of death is typically dysentery as water mixes with sewage. In cities, sewers and subsequently toilets will be backing up. If one does not bury excrement properly this too can lead to serious diseases. You will need portable toilets, lots of toilet paper, and bleach to scrub clean the messes.

In major cities, trash disposal will become a major problem as well. It will attract dangerous animals. The disease component will expand exponentially after a week. In these cases, trash should be burned. A pit needs to be prepared and you must have a large supply of wood and matches.

Medicines and Medical Supplies

This may be the most difficult aspect of preparation because a lot of life-saving medication (e.g. diabetes, heart pills, asthma inhalers, etc.) are controlled by prescription. First, one should immediately learn about natural remedies and stock up on these products. Secondly, if you can take a tiny bit less of your meds today, without endangering yourself, begin doing so. Ignore the expiration on your medication labels. Medications far outlast the posted dates as Big Pharma wants you to keep coming back. Finally, consider a series of smuggling shopping sprees to Mexico or to Canada.  Empty out old pill bottles and fill them with over the counter medications that you can purchase with medication that matches the labels on the pill boxes.

I do not believe that most immigration officials are not going to challenge something so trivial that appears to be legitimate. Of course, you will have to be judicious in the amount you smuggle back. Keep in mind it is a crime to bring back foreign medication to our country. Oh, I forgot to mention that America is the only country in the world which does not allow its citizens to purchase foreign drugs. Isn’t it nice that your government does such a good job of protecting Big Pharma’s monopoly while endangering your health?

Bugging Out

 If you are convinced as I am that the collapse is on the near horizon, you should have a bug out location outside of a major metropolitan area and once you see the signs, don’t wait to act, go right away. You will not have 72 hours to get where you are going. And your bug out location must be well within a tank of gas.

Before you go, you better have a bug out bag. It is possible that you may have to flee your home in order to stay alive. Surviving the first three days in these cases is the first critical challenge. Prepare a bug out bag for each family member and store it in an accessible place.

Some of the items in the bug out bag should contain are sleeping bags, night vision binoculars (available online for $200) flashlights with extra batteries, guns and ammo, knives, forks, spoons, weather appropriate clothing, toiletries, change of underwear and other clothes, bottled water, snacks, water purification device and tablets, small pot for boiling water, backpacker mini-cook stove with fuel, towel, ability to make fire, flashlight with extra batteries, a first aid kit and medication, small long-range walkie-talkies, fishing lines, small fishing hooks, a compass, and your critical papers (ID, birth certificates and bank account books and bank statements.

If you cannot get out of the city, you need to give your home a ransacked look and feel.  Throw old clothes and wrappers along with dresser drawers out on the front lawn. Barricade your doors. If you can afford it, by special awnings, now, to go over your windows to prevent easy access. Install security doors. Make your place unattractive to the quick score.  

If you are departing the city, stay off of the main roads as much as possible. Try and network and travel in a caravan if possible. Highways will become death traps as they will be targeted by bad guys, many of whom will don military and police uniforms in order lure in unsuspecting people. To a starving and thirsty gang, there is not a better target than a passenger vehicle, a truck or better yet, and RV loaded down with stored food and ammunition and stopped in gridlock on a highway trying to exit the city.

Military strategy documents all advise that when governments fail, roads are to be avoided at all costs.

If you are in your normal 8-5 work routine, have a preset place to meet your family. Make sure you coach your children, that under no circumstances, are they get on a school bus that will take them to “safety.”  Schools across America annually practice bus evacuation drills. The problem that I have with these drills is that they never tell the public, or even school authorities what kind of places they will take your children. In a major 2011 Denver disaster drill, called Operation Mountain Guardian, the minions of FEMA took busloads of children, without proper parental notification, to Sports Authority Field field, where the Denver Broncos play football. Does anyone remember the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? And of course, the bus could always head to a detention camp as well.

Coach your children on how to drop out of the line to the bus and where to hide until you can come and get your child. You should practice reuniting both in a vehicle and on foot. Keep a bug out survival bag in your car. Paranoid? Look at the economic numbers that I listed at the top of this article and ask yourself, paranoid, or prepared? 

Conclusion

Have you heard about the rumor which says that the globalists must first tell humanity before they are ready to do something nefarious to humanity? Maybe that rumor is true. On October 27 at 8pm, the National Geographic Channel is running a two hour documentary on what would happen if the lights out for 10 days.

This article, by no means, is meant to represent an exhaustive list for survival needs. This article only represents what I would do and I am hoping to prompt some much needed discussion in this critical area of self-sufficiency because Americans are woefully unprepared. The contents listed here are intended to get the reader to reflect on their own preparation and what they could do when disaster strikes.