To think everyone needs to prepare for cybercrime as the new war

[MyHeartyCoralSnail]

It looks like power has been lost across Spain and Portugal -we don’t know why yet, but it’s clear the infrastructure is able to be taken down, M&S have been attacked and finding it very difficult to sort out. Banks seem to go down on a weekly basis, the NHS suffers fairly frequently.

AIBU to think we need to take more stuff off line. Have access to at least a weeks worth of expenditure in cash and to be prepared in our homes (as advised) to lose all utilities for a few days?

I work in this field, and I can assure you that vast numbers of people in multiple different fields across across the majority of countries are in roles entirely dedicated to tackling fraud. Police raids and arrests happen every week for phone scams, online fraud etc and that's just in the UK. There are many, many people in prison for it. Billions of ££ are spent on it.
I find it really strange that you have said 'I find it interesting how big of an issue fraud is, and how little prosecution happens / the frauds are shut down.' When that's just not true.
If you had said 'it seems like, to me personally, because I get a lot of people attempting to defraud me' that would be fair enough, but to state so confidently that prosecution happens rarely and frauds don't get shut down when that's so far from the truth is a bit odd?

If it weren’t for people confidently proclaiming things they know nothing at all about, would there even be a Mumsnet?

South Africans and South African businesses have heavily invested in generators and invertors. It’s really not the same thing as mass unexpected power cuts.

they even have an app thst tells you when it’s going off and on.

a very different situation

I didn’t say it was the same situation, I just said they can be managed. If our future is unexpected power cuts caused by hostile nations we can adapt in the same way over time

@Daisyvodka I know of several examples in which fraud has been reported to the police for nothing to happen, and the scam not be closed down.

Most seems to be in the police’s ‘oh well, here’s your crime number, you might not hear from us’ bucket, along most non-violent crimes against the person.

I don’t doubt there are people working against fraud, but it’s really the tip of the iceberg vs the scale of the problem.

I don’t want an argument.

but South Africa has been dealing with loadshedding since 2007. It’s controlled power cuts, not random acts of “violence”
they are switched on and off at the power stations.

a sustained attack from a nefarious opponent is entirely different,

and in the 18 years it been happening - many of the poorer and more marginalised people are very impacted by it.
money buys generators and the means to keep the lights on. It’s not cheap or easy.

we would take many many years to cope in the way they do.

That would be because they are concentrating on taking down the organised crime gangs who organise the frauds, not the individual frauds one by one.

the same way the police don’t go after small drug pushers, they put resource at stopping the organised crime ring and disrupting the whole supply

the lowley fraudsters, like drug dealers, are likely groomed or victims of modern slavery themselves and as soon as one is taken off the streets they’re immediately replaced. It’s a waste of resource going after them.

There is no argument. You’re not telling me anything I (and millions of others) don’t already know.

Part of the problem is that successive governments around the world have ignored the concept of cyber warfare too the point they can't even agree on a definition of it and what the responses for it would be. A group of experts for together around 15 years and put together the Tallinn Accords to develop a framework which was then ignored globally.
I don't think people realise how widespread it is. I spent nearly 9 years working for a major institution which is part of the critical national infrastructure where a large part of my job was cyber security and we were under attack daily from state sponsored groups in Russia, China and North Korea. A large proportion of cyber crime against civilian targets is also carried out by North Korea to funnel money into the country to fund its nuclear program and defence research now they aren't funded as much but Russia.
We aren't innocent either, it's common knowledge GCHQ and other organisations are doing the same the other way.

I'm genuinely surprised that we don't see more going on, but fortunately there are a lot of talented and dedicated people working in the background trying to prevent these attacks.

The other problem is that a lot of large-scale fraud is international now because of the internet and very few countries work will together fighting crime, especially consumer targeted fraud and scams and often countries don't care so much about criminals when they aren't targeting the local population.

I'm afraid it's the other way round - the people working on the problem are working on the icebergs, you are seeing lots of snowballs that it looks like noones picking up (because they are too busy with the icebergs, or they have found the source of the snowballs but can't stop them from being thrown as it's part of a bigger iceberg, or they need to sort out the legal and logistical work of taking down the source because if they rush in, someone will just be able to set up another snowball thrower within seconds that looks exactly the same as the first.... I'm sure you aren't intending to, but you are coming across like you are saying 'the authorities don't know how widespread the problem is but we people on the street do because we see stuff over and over again' when without the work that goes on you would see 100x the amount of scams that you do.
Unless you are talking about like, local woman scams people on fb marketplace by taking deposits for a car, then not answering to messages. Slightly different ballgame.

Weapons to protect your stash.

in other words, how to get ahead of the panic, not stuck in it
so basically yes a small amount to cover the essentials as needed.

Basically Shadow wars of the various Govts

I try to have at least £100 but a takeaway is at least £45 for 6 of us and our kids tutor is £40. Both only take cash. So I wouldn't get very far. I have lots of change in various bags.

Enough for a few pints of milk, some bread. £15 I guess would be good if you could spare it. Put all your 50ps or 20ps aside to build some up. Easier if you use cash occasionally