Any kind of attack can already be filtered by the top tier ISPs around the country, and if it's really serious they'll unplug anything Obama asks them to. I just don't see how any kind of mass internet attacks can be a real threat to the USA.
We've had bad things happen on the internet so many times that we're pretty much immune to them now.
Agreed, not to mention that the real bread and butter of our nations military and intelligence networks are completely separate from what we know as the internet.
There is a huge difference between taking, say, whitehouse.gov or army.mil down verse our real command and control networks--which are probably next to impossible to take down considering there are layers upon layers of backup communication systems.
The idea of a "cyber-attack" being used as a first salvo in an act of war against the United States by any nation-state is pretty ludicrous, as it would minimally (if at all) affect our ability to destroy whoever was dumb enough to try it.
You nailed it. I was going to mention the EMP stuff, but backed away.
A high altitude nuclear detonation above the continental US is the first strike protocol for any nation-state that would try to attack us. Even then, a lot of our military's core command and control infrastructure has been hardened to withstand such an EMP for decades--as it was known that a high altitude detonation over US soil was the Soviet's plan for a first strike...That is why Cuba was such a big deal. Still, the EMP would completely decimate every non-hardened electrical system.
We've had bad things happen on the internet so many times that we're pretty much immune to them now.