NETWORKING trojanized updates to the company ’ s customers , and ended up gaining access to data centres belonging to at least nine US federal agencies , including NASA , the State Department , the Department of Defense , and the Department of Justice .
In Conclusion … We can all agree that knocking out the Internet through a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks and strategic raids on subsea cable junctions isn ’ t a good idea - no matter how much joy the thought of a submarine with a giant pair of wire cutters on the front of it brings both my and my fluffy white cat . I ’ m a reasonable human being .
But the world isn ’ t exclusively made up of reasonable human beings . Not by a long shot . In April , the FBI foiled a plot by radical right wing conspiracy theorist Seth Aaron Pendley to use a pipe bomb to blow up a hyperscale AWS data centre in Ashburn , Virginia . Pendley , an avowed QAnon truther , fervent Trump supporter , and participant in the January 6 attack on the US capitol , allegedly planned to “ kill off about 70 percent of the Internet ” if successful .
While it ’ s doubtful that , even if he succeeded , the terrorist plot would have been anywhere near that successful , it ’ s still a sobering thought . What if someone else tries it ? Someone a good deal smarter , or richer than Pendley . What if they succeed ? The critical infrastructure that underpins our modern world is a lot more fragile than we ’ d care to admit . datacentremagazine . com 65