If you’ve ever watched The Matrix or Ocean’s
Eleven, you’ll be familiar with EMP weapons — pulses of intense
electromagnetic radiation that melt any nearby conductors, disabling just about
any electrical system or electronic device. Despite their sci-fi-like portrayal
by Hollywood, EMP weapons are very real, and very capable of destroying computers
or knocking out a power grid. That’s why the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany
has now created a device that can defend against EMP attacks.
While the Fraunhofer Institute device can’t
actually defend against the crippling effects of an EMP weapon, it can detect
the strength, frequency, and location of the attack. An EMP
(electromagnetic pulse) is essentially just big, high-powered burst of
radiation — and like other forms of radiation, such as a radio signal, it’s
relatively easy to analyze that radiation to work out what exactly is going on.
The Fraunhofer instrument consists of four
antennae on a tripod (facing different directions), a shielded box that houses
some RF components (amplifiers, rectifiers, etc.), and a computer to analyze
the resultant data. The Fraunhofer Institute rarely gives up more information
than it has to, and sadly this case is no exception, so we have to do some
guessing on how the instrument actually works. The antennae cover a quadrant of
90 degrees each, where they can detect “all types of electromagnetic sources.”
In the shielded box there’s a “high-frequency module” that can determine when
an electromagnetic pulse starts and stops. The computer then tallies this
information up to work out where an EMP originated from, how long the EMP
lasted, and what kind of EMP blast we’re talking about (weaponized, nuclear,
non-nuclear, etc.) “Those affected by the attack can use this information to
mount a rapid and appropriate protective response,” explains Michael Jöster
from the Institute.
At this point, we should note that Fraunhofer’s
device only works for small EMP attacks — non-nuclear EMPs that
generally have very small, localized effects. The nuclear EMP that North Korea
recently (reportedly) obtained from Russia is based on an atomic bomb, and
would thus have enough energy to melt (fuse) every electrical system and
electronic device for hundreds of miles — including the Fraunhofer Institute’s
instrument. This new instrument would only be useful in defending against
small, non-nuclear EMPs — and again, it would only help you locate the attacker
after the EMP has already shut down your security system (or whatever
else those terrorists are trying to shut down). If you’re the target of a
nuclear EMP, there really isn’t anything you can do, short of shielding
yourself with a lot of lead.
All of this leads me to ask an intriguing
question: Just how common are these low-level EMP attacks? Fraunhofer says that
at least one criminal group in Berlin has used suitcase-sized EMP devices to
crack the security of limousines. Similar devices can be used to overcome alarm
systems, though no real-world examples are given. In general, Fraunhofer says
that consumer-grade devices (smartphones, cars) are most at risk from these
suitcase EMPs — industrial systems usually have enough shielding that you’d
need a serious EMP device to cause any damage. In general, there are very few
reported cases of EMP attacks — but that isn’t to say they don’t
exist. Presumably, if Fraunhofer has gone out of its way to mitigate
against EMPs, there must’ve been demand from the Institute’s industry partners
to develop such a device. Who knows: Maybe high-tech crime syndicates have
suddenly started using EMPs — but in the interests of security and public
relations, such attacks simply aren’t being publicized.
