"What if a crippling attack struck the country's digital infrastructure?" Current and former national government officials tackled the question in a Washington hotel ballroom on Tuesday, February 16, 2010. The results, which will be broadcast on a special CNN report soon, were not comforting.

Michael Chertoff served as the national security advisor in the exercise. The Bipartisan Policy Center sponsored the exercise. The scenario was developed by Georgetown University and companies such as PayPal developed the cyber-attack scenario. Participants did not have knowledge of the scenario beforehand.

For me, the most alarming statement was the last sentence in the Los Angeles Times story: "In the end, no grand plan emerged, but the group did agree to advise the president to federalize the National Guard, even if governors objected, and deploy the troops -- perhaps backed by the U.S. military -- to guard power lines and prevent unrest."

To read the full Los Angeles Times article, go to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-cyber-attack17-2010feb17,0,803757,full.story