Fourth Generational Warfare Hits Home

I found myself on the Front Lines of Fourth Generational Warfare in one of the more surprising and peaceful places possible my workplace. The headquarters of my employer, Teletech was hit by a computer virus, called the Rimbot or Storm.
This virus shut down hundreds of computers, delayed our work and caused havoc. In my department I was able to work but a colleague, an educated lady with lots of experience ended up spending the day putting files in boxes and opening mail because her computer was down and she had nothing to do. Okay this was an inconvenience for us, Teletech is a big corporation with millions of dollars and vast resources but what about small businesses out there.
Say a freelance writer trying to turn in an article or somebody who works from home using their computer, they need the computer to meet a deadline but its not working anymore. Even big corporations can be hurt by sustained computer attacks. Virtually all financial transactions are done electronically these days, even checks when they are cashed or deposited are electronic the bank verifies your deposit or withdrawal via computer.
I work in accounts payable our job is to pay the company's bills we do that electronically by moving funds around with computers. If computers don't work we can't pay the bills, we can't pay our vendors many of whom are small business people who rely on the payment from Teletech to pay their bills and meet their payroll. If Teletech's AP is shut down for a couple of weeks or longer many small businesses could be put out of business. Teletech has offices in small towns so whole communities could be devastated. What if it's Teletech's payroll that doesn't work thousands of people including me depend on Teletech to pay the rent or the mortgage and put food on the table.
A virus attack on the financial system of a large corporation or country could disrupt the economy of a nation or even the world. Imagine going to the bank and not being able to get your money out because the computers aren't working. Or going to the store or the gas station and not being able to buy food or gas because your debit or credit card wouldn't work. In my home state of Colorado thousands of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens went hungry because the state's welfare computer system didn't work.
My guess is we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in the years ahead, attacks designed not to destroy but to disrupt systems and economies. Viruses have become a fact of life, and its not clear where they're coming from.
Popular mythology sustained by the media is that viruses are the work of hackers, some disgruntled nerd in a dingy apartment seeking revenge on the world. Perhaps that's true, but I have serious doubts about somebody is spending a lot of time, money and resources to develop these viruses. I doubt some character who delivers pizza or works at CompUSA has that kind of money, so I imagine there's organized effort behind this.
The most logical suspects are the world's major government especially China, the US and Russia. Countries like Russia, Iran, China and North Korea can't challenge us militarily but they can hurt us through cyber warfare. Iran can't invade the US and its doubtful they could give terrorists the weaponry to really hurt us but what if Iran unleashed hundreds or thousands or even millions of computer viruses against the US.
What if Iran shut down every computer at every bank in the US, or every ATM in the US? Or crashed the entire Internet or froze the stock market? The result could be an economic meltdown on the level of the Great Depression. Now I don't know if Iran has the capability to do this or if they would do it they had. After all the Ayatollahs have a lot of money stowed away in their overseas bank accounts and would like access to that money.
But what about foes who truly don't give daman such as Al Qaeda whose members view the modern world as evil and are willing to die to destroy it? Or Marxist fanatics who view capitalism as evil and wish to destroy it? Those kind of maniacs would be willing to push the button and unleash the viruses.
My guess is that is only a matter of time before somebody unleashes a computer virus or swarm of viruses powerful enough to disrupt the world's economy on a large scale. I wonder if we are prepared to deal with such a catastrophe? after the failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina, my guess would be the government isn't prepared so I hope corporate America is. If they're not a lot of people are going to suffer.