Preparations for an EMP are very different than preparations for hacking.
Most of the sources I've seen for info on EMP have been wildly inaccurate based on what's currently known. I would start here for good information:
https://www.empcenter.org/. I skimmed a paper (
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/rogers1/docs/meta-r-320.pdf) that looks really good for direct information about a specific type of EMP. I'm adding it to my "read this" pile for sure.
Here is a brief version of my very-much-incomplete understanding of EMP preparations:
- Long powerlines and those things connected to them will be the most vulnerable to EMP. The biggest threat, IMO, is that an EMP would badly damage the power grid infrastructure. This seems likely to lead to needing to manufacture a bunch of new transformers, which of course is harder to do without the power grid. A whole-building surge suppressor can be valuable in protecting gear from an EMP's effect on powerlines, but won't do anything against an EMP that directly impacts the building.
- Cars may or may not be fine depending on their ages (old cars without computers are likely to be more resilient) but there are reasonable arguments made that newer cars that depend on integrated circuits can survive or be restarted after an EMP. The only thing I'm sure of is that we don't know for sure.
- Complex devices are more vulnerable to EMP than simple devices. Your toaster is far more likely to make it through an EMP than your laptop.
- When one has big concerns and some budget, faraday cages for the most critical backup gear is the way to go. There's no need, IMO, to buy specialty faraday gear for this for most people; you can make one yourself with inexpensive materials.
- The only way, IMO, to protect a significant amount of computing infrastructure from EMP is to isolate it totally in a faraday-protected room, with a lot of engineering to isolate its primary and backup power from EMP effects. The network must also be protected, but that's easy to design (use transceivers so that no copper, only fiber penetrates the faraday protection, with multiple appropriate-diameter bends in the fiber).
Having been professionally, if peripherally involved in EMP preparations, I've chosen not to build a faraday box for backup gear at home.
Preparation for and preventing hacking attacks has been my primary career for over thirty years now. I can propose a reading library but your associate probably needs a consultant.
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