On Friday last week, the US government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame - a simulated large-scale mock cyberattack, aimed at figuring out what the US nation's readiness to any kind of large scale hacker attacks would be.
Experts depicted hackers who shut down electricity in 10 states, failures in vital systems for online banking and retail sales, infected discs mistakenly distributed by commercial software companies and critical flaws discovered in core Internet technology.
Some mock attacks were aimed at causing a "significant cyber disruption" that could seriously damage energy, transportation and health care industries and undermine public confidence, said George Foresman, an undersecretary at the Homeland Security Department.
It remains a little unclear as to whether the exercise proved successful. It is necessary now for responses from all of the participants to be compiled, and a final report prepared.