Be Prepared

By Janice Lane Palko

Several weeks ago, I was at a local discount store, and when I went to the bank of self-checkout terminals, I scanned my membership card, and received an error message. As I hit the button to call for help, all the other machine alert lights began to flash too, signaling that all the other customers at the self-checkouts needed assistance as well. The sales associate came over and began to investigate and then concluded that there was a glitch due to a power failure on McKnight Road. Thankfully, the regular checkouts were still working, and I and all the others trying to use the self-checkout moved over into a long line to purchase our food at a regular staffed checkout.

Not long after that my husband tried to schedule a car inspection online with the dealership. When that wouldn’t work, he called the Service Department only to be told that they and numerous other dealerships had been the victim of a cyberattack and couldn’t schedule the inspection appointment.

A little bit of investigation revealed that on June 18, CDK Global, a software provider to auto dealerships across the country had been cyberattacked, affecting 15,000 dealerships. After several calls to the dealer to see if they were back online, my husband was advised to take the car to an independent car repair place. When he went to the car repair place, the owner took out his appointment book and penciled in our car.

You may not have heard about it, at least I hadn’t, but last November, an Iranian-aligned cyber grouped hacked the Aliquippa Water Authority. It affected a pump that regulates pressure on a water supply line. Fortunately, an alarm notified workers and the system was shut down and alternate methods of maintaining water pressure along the line were implemented.

I love technology just as much as the next person, but these episodes are just some small ways that illustrate how vulnerable we are when solely relying on tech. One of the biggest threats those in the know worry about is an Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) wielded against us by an enemy, which would possibly disable everything from communications to utilities to simple things like shutting down our banking system.

The Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared.” I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but a Brownie, but I know the value of hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I can’t do anything about securing our infrastructure, but it might not be a bad idea to keep a calculator, some paper and pencils, an appointment book, and some food and water on hand and keep up those old-school skills like making change or scheduling appointments in the event of an outage or God forbid a full-blown attack.