America’s Cyber Insecurity

Cyberattacks on the United States jumped 85 percent during the recent government shutdown. According to the American Security Project, “[W]eekly cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure have increased 56 percent year-over-year.” In September 2024, U.S. utilities suffered a 70 percent increase in cyberattacks compared to September 2023. Hostile states are responsible for much of this increase, with CrowdStrike reporting that China’s attacks were up 150 percent in 2024.

Meanwhile, the U.S. plans to slash its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency budget. America’s aging infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattack—and the rise of artificial intelligence is making it worse.

This is a real military threat. In 2007, Russia shut down Estonia’s Internet, causing massive economic losses and paralyzing government communications for 22 days. During Russia’s 2008 military invasion of Georgia, it also shut down important websites—the first time cyberattacks were combined with military offensives. Russia has used this strategy throughout its war on Ukraine.

These examples point to a future where offensives are increasingly fought with zeros and ones. Wars could be won or lost before soldiers even move.

Gridlock

America faced 1,162 weekly cyberthreats in the first nine months of 2024. Over 70 percent of the electric grid is more than 25 years old, with a large part older than 50. Attempts to modernize the grid can introduce new problems, creating 60 points of failure per day. Currently, there are 24,000 vulnerable points in America’s electric grid.

America has been attacked this way before. In May 2023, Volt Typhoon, a Chinese government-backed hacking group, was discovered infecting critical American infrastructure such as its electric grid, water systems and the Navy. No one spotted the attack for two years. Former fbi Director Christopher Wray called it “the defining threat of our generation.” How much malware lies in other critical systems?

America’s adversaries possess the capability to shut down the grid.
—Jennifer Granholm, former energy secretary

In April, Spain and Portugal suffered an electric grid failure caused by an atmospheric occurrence. Within seconds, about 60 percent of Spain’s electricity dropped. This caused an outage that affected millions of people, cutting lights and disrupting banking, public transportation and traffic. At least eight people died from malfunctioning carbon monoxide detectors and hospital failures. Though it lasted less than a day, it caused serious damage, with estimates of $1.8 billion. This is just a small taste of what a compromised power grid can do.

A major cyberattack on the U.S. electrical grid has long worried security experts. Such an attack wouldn’t be easy. But if an adversary pulled it off, it’d be lights out in more ways than one.
—Justin Ling, journalist for Wired

Phish Out of Water

In December 2023, Iranian hackers breached major water systems in Pennsylvania. The flow of water was not affected, but it proved they could get in. If an adversary tapped into America’s water plants, they could contaminate or stop the flow of water to millions with a few keyboard strokes. Despite the wake-up call, little has changed.

The Environmental Protection Agency reported in January: “In a mass review of 1,062 drinking water systems that serve over 193 million people in the U.S., the epa’s Office of Inspector General found that around a quarter of these systems have weaknesses that could result in major impacts, such as service disruptions, loss of customer data, or even biohazard-contaminated water. Specifically, 97 systems affecting 27 million people had critical issues, while 211 systems serving 83 million people had less severe, but still concerning, problems.”

Sky-high Problems

On average, 3 million people fly on U.S. airlines every day on approximately 45,000 flights. What would happen if America’s air traffic control system were compromised?

“We are pushing decades-old aviation systems to handle high-demand travel 24/7, and the cracks are showing,” said a senior analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Policy Innovation. Hackers could shut down critical systems on planes in flight. They could send faulty information to planes, leading to collisions. Airports have been hacked before. Most recently, the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania and three Canadian airports were hacked to display political messages in mid-October.

The AI Aspect

AI can be used to attack and defend computer systems. AI models can be trained to spot attacks based on suspicious behavior that older virus scanners would miss, but they can also be trained to search for vulnerabilities that more formulaic malware wouldn’t spot. And they can act faster than any human.

As cybercriminals harness AI to automate and enhance their attacks on national infrastructure, the need to bolster our defenses has never been more urgent.
—Forbes

“Since 2022, AI-assisted cyber infiltrations have increased 220 percent year over year, with cloud intrusions surging 136 percent from 2024 to 2025 alone,” wrote the American Security Project.

AI can easily be used in phishing attacks. This is when an attacker sends a message pretending to be someone they are not, e.g. a Nigerian prince looking for someone to take his vast wealth off his hands. Phishing attacks in particular have risen since the government shutdown: “More than 90 percent of the attacks against the federal government from the end of September through today have been phishing attacks,” with energy among the most attacked areas.

AI can be trained to create huge numbers of personalized phishing e-mails. Amazon Web Services explains:

Agentic AI is an autonomous AI system that can act independently to achieve predetermined goals. Traditional software follows predefined rules, and traditional artificial intelligence also requires prompting and step-by-step guidance. However, agentic AI is proactive and can perform complex tasks without constant human oversight. “Agentic” indicates agency—the ability of these systems to act independently but in a goal-driven manner.

What makes agentic AI especially dangerous is its ability to coordinate attacks, allowing for large-scale cyberoffensives with little human oversight. This can make any current infiltrations far worse, turning a small infiltration into a potentially system-wide issue. “Once it’s infected a single device, it can automatically copy its behavior across other networks, rapidly polluting multiple connected systems in minutes,” wrote Stephen Kines in Cyber Defense.

Agentic AI makes cyberattacks more accessible, as less expertise is required to use it. In many ways, it could be the great equalizer in cyberwarfare. With agentic AI, one successful hack can infect everything.

America’s Achilles’ Heel

“We could lose the next war before we even begin, if somebody breaks our military codes,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 1999. Since then, threats to America’s technology infrastructure have amplified as AI transforms cyberspace.

In the same article, Mr. Flurry referenced Ezekiel 7:14, a key end-time prophecy describing a time in the U.S. when “they have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle.” Could this be the result of hackers destabilizing critical infrastructure? Other biblical prophecies mention civil unrest falling upon America—failed power and water systems could play into that.

Mr. Flurry drew particular attention to Germany’s expertise. Earlier this month, Germany’s interior minister announced plans to build a “cyber dome” to fight cyberattacks, which cost the nation $350 billion last year. Along with the cyber dome, Germany will change its laws to allow for “German security authorities to take down, attack, disrupt and destroy the digital infrastructure of attackers—even if the attackers and their infrastructure are located outside of Germany.” It has invested in this area for years. In 2018, the Bundeswehr formed a cyberwar division, which now has 16,000 personnel. The European Union’s $840 billion rearm Europe initiative allocates a portion to developments in cyberwarfare.

Bible prophecy sounds a powerful warning about a strong Germany and a weak America. For more on these prophecies, read Mr. Flurry’s article “America’s Achilles’ Heel—and Germany.”

For more information, order your free copy of Mr. Flurry’s book Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet.