Monday, July 28, 2008

Nuclear Threat to Electronic Communications Sytems

The Commission to Assess the Threat to United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
has released its latest report entitled Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Critical National Infrastructure. According to the report:
The electromagnetic pulse generated by a high altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. The increasingly pervasive use of electronics of all forms represents the greatest source of vulnerability to attack by EMP. Electronics are used to control, communicate, compute, store, manage, and implement nearly every aspect of United States (U.S.) civilian systems. When a nuclear explosion occurs at high altitude, the EMP signal it produces will cover the wide geographic region within the line of sight of the detonation.1 This broad band, high amplitude EMP, when coupled into sensitive electronics, has the capability to produce widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society.