The fear of nuclear annihilation may still be at the top of many people’s “nightmare scenario” list. But increasingly, to wreak utter havoc on the world, the need for those kinds of weapons of mass destruction has diminished. Today, it wouldn’t take bombs or missiles to turn the world upside down—just one sophisticated hack capable of wiping out the internet. With it would go bank records, public documents, modern entertainment, modes of transportation, communication lines, and ultimately, public order itself.
Today as I got up and sat at my desk to work, it was immediately clear that something was very wrong. Several high-priced financial websites and programs that I use daily and that are critical to my work were unresponsive. I sat staring at a frozen loading screen, waiting and hoping my connection would return. When I checked my phone and noticed the same sluggishness and delays, the realization hit: this wasn’t a glitch—it was another hack – and it was massive.
This summer, we discussed the Microsoft hack that occurred in July 2025, in an article headed “Down to Earth and the Realities of Omission Propaganda in America Today.” (It’s available on my website stephenleeb.com in the Finance & Geopolitics section.) At the time, the hack was passed off as mainly involving Microsoft Outlook. But because we had access to highly sophisticated cyber security publications that, while publicly available, aren’t widely followed, we knew it was much more, and we called it “a shot across the bow.” The attack was aimed directly at Microsoft’s cloud architecture. A hack capable of compromising something as large and vital as Microsoft revealed a level of sophistication and precision that was unprecedented. Most notable, however, was how effectively the entire incident was covered up.
No major media outlets reported on it. Searches for “July Microsoft hack” brought up references only to a far less significant outage from the previous year. It was clear the summer’s hack had been buried intentionally. Today’s event, however, is impossible to ignore. Major outlets like CNN have already reported on it, calling it a “global outage.”
Why, in our earlier article, did we describe the July 2025 hack as a “shot across the bow”? Our assumption was that it had originated from China, given China’s technological capabilities and motivation, which we fully described in our article. And we now see that it was indeed a warning shot, albeit one that regrettably went unheard, silenced by American sources who managed to suppress the story.
Now we’re left to ask: Why is China so intent on demonstrating to the U.S. that it can bring us to our knees—of making clear it has the power to do so? As we have been stressing for some time, in most things technological, China has surpassed us by a wide margin. At the same time, though, its culture adheres to the view that the best world is one in which everyone participates. China may not like the U.S. any more than we like China. But a viable U.S. economy, beyond benefiting the U.S., helps the entire world.
The effects of today’s hack are too widespread to cover up. Both China and Russia are anxious to see a world monetary system centered around gold and to end the horrific wars and needless waste of the valuable resources that a self-sustaining world will need.
Within a week or so, Putin and Trump are scheduled to meet in Hungary. Our feeling is that Trump, as was likely the case in Alaska, will again be read the riot act. He will be told, what anyone knows who has been listening to military reports from either Ukraine or Russia, that the war in Ukraine is essentially over. Russia has emerged virtually unscathed, while Ukraine has lost the entirety of its youth. It is now time to start cooperating.
We believe that Trump gets the message, but that those around him – from Christian fanatics to oligarchs who view themselves as deities – have been urging him to continue to fight for “freedom.” This time, though, the pushback from the deep state should be far less than before. We hope that’s the case, lest the next time, instead of being a one-day-can’t- be-ignored hack, it will be a one-week catastrophic hack or worse.
In a world like today’s, we all have to be prepared and protect ourselves and our loved ones. As we have been arguing fiercely for many years, your best protection is not more guns but more gold.
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