What Would An Actual ‘Cyber Apocalypse’ Look Like?

What Would An Actual ‘Cyber Apocalypse’ Look Like?

The media, social media and some in the U.S. legislative branch went wild speculating about the tech failures that plagued the New York Stock Exchange, The Wall Street Journal, and United Airlines today. The confluence of events felt a little like a disaster movie, if you were watching from a Twitter seat. But how would the actual cyber apocalypse — you know, the Big One — take shape?

There aren’t ready answers yet regarding the tech fail clusterfuck today. Still, breathless global coverage and hysterical posts across social media demonstrate that it doesn’t take much more than a few high-profile fails for people to start yelling about end-game cyber warfare. (Others found the day to be hilarious and fodder for jokes.)

We know our commenters are both tech-savvy and capable of thinking like a cyber warlord villain in the movie July 8, 2015. So if you were really going to cause worldwide panic and abject destruction with the flick of a killswitch or two, what would have to happen? What does a real cyber apocalypse look like?


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