Opinion

An AI cyberattack could turn off America's lights before Washington even understands why

Power grids, water systems, hospitals and factories face escalating threats from AI-enabled foreign hackers

By Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) Fox News

Published September 2, 2026 9:00am EDT | Updated September 2, 2026 9:50am EDT

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Your lights. Your water. Your hospital. Your internet. All four depend on digital systems that foreign hackers are now targeting.

Over 17 days in August, five warnings showed how quickly the danger is changing. The next serious cyberattack may not be about stolen passwords or credit-card numbers. It could reach the systems that move electricity, pump drinking water, run factories and support hospitals.

Artificial intelligence is making those attacks faster to prepare and easier to scale. Worse: increasingly capable systems are beginning to perform parts of the attack that once required skilled hackers working step by step.

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Five August developments tell the story.

1. OpenAI said the window is closing. On Aug. 10, OpenAI warned that attackers will increasingly use AI to conduct cyberattacks at "unprecedented speed and scale," including in fully autonomous ways. Its conclusion was blunt: defenders have a "narrowing window to prepare."

OpenAI’s own cyber-focused model, GPT-5.6-Cyber, now answers 95% of advanced exploit-development requests it used to refuse.

For defenders, every minute matters. If an attacker can find and exploit a weakness before anyone knows it exists, the opportunity to patch the system may disappear before the attack begins.

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2. Federal agencies said the attacks are no longer theoretical. On Aug. 19, the NSA, CISA, FBI,........

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