Infrastru Subcommittee on Cybersecurity

Electromagnetic Pulse (Emp): Threat to Critical Infrastructure Infrastru Subcommittee on Cybersecurity

Publisher Marketing: EMP is simply a burst of electromagnetic radiation that results from certain types of high-energy explosions or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field. EMPs can be generated by nuclear weapons, from naturally-occurring sources such as solar storms, or specialized non-nuclear EMP weapons. In 1962, the United States conducted a test named STARFISH Prime where the military detonated a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear bomb about 25 miles above Johnston Atoll in the in the Pacific. In space, six American, British, and Soviet satellites suffered damage, and 800 miles away in Hawaii, burglar alarms sounded, street lights blinked out, and phones, radios, and televisions went dead. While only 1 percent of the existing street lights were affected, it became clear that electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, could cause significant damage. Some would say it is a low probability, but the damage that could be caused in the event of an EMP attack both by the sun, a solar event, or a man-made attack would be catastrophic. We talk a lot about a nuclear bomb in Manhattan, and we talk about a cybersecurity threat, the grid, power grid, in the Northeast, and all these things would actually probably pale in comparison to the devastation that an EMP attack could perpetrate on Americans.