Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

A new play is opening next week at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. Starring former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as “National Security Advisor,” former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte as “Secretary of State,” and other former officials in similar supporting roles, the production will open and close the same day. It will employ professional scriptwriters and a mock White House Situation Room, and it could offer an instructive look at how the U.S. government might handle a massive cyber attack.

From all accounts, this simulation -- entitled Cyber ShockWave -- is a well-organized effort to ascertain how a cyber attack scenario might unfold and how top officials might react. It is being produced by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank founded by former Sens. Howard Baker (R.), Tom Daschle (D.), Bob Dole (R.), and George Mitchell (D.). General Dynamics, PayPal, and Symantec, among others, are sponsoring the simulated attack.

“The participants, whose mission is to advise the president and mount a response to the attack, will not know the scenario in advance,” the center said. “They will react to the threat in real time, as intelligence and news reports drive the simulation, shedding light on how the difficult split-second decisions must be made to respond to an unfolding and often unseen threat.”

“Following the simulation, there will be a post-event discussion with the participants and partners to discuss what the U.S. government can do to avoid a real-world cyber attack of this magnitude and what can be learned from the exercise,” it added.

Unlike similar simulations conducted by actual government officials, this one will unfold in public, with CNN taping it for later broadcast. It will be interesting to see what lessons emerge from this unique performance and how policy-makers in the real world react. -- TL