(End of the American Dream)—Could insidious forces use ultra-powerful AI agents to create a “financial doomsday” by hacking into banks all over the globe? Financial executives have been forced to prepare for a “day after” scenario because the number of AI cyberattacks is increasing at a blistering pace. As AI models become even more powerful and even more sophisticated, the attacks on our financial system will only get worse. It appears to be only a matter of time until a worst case scenario materializes. How will our economy function when that day suddenly arrives?
We never should have allowed our financial system to become so deeply dependent on the Internet.
Some of our best and brightest minds are creating AI models that are insanely formidable. That technology can be used for good purposes, but it can also be used for evil purposes.
What would you do if you woke up someday and all of the money in your bank account was gone?
What would you do if you woke up someday and all of the money in your entire bank was gone?
There are all sorts of nightmarish hypotheticals that I could mention.
For a long time, U.S. banks were way ahead of the game, but now attacks have become so sophisticated that they are “preparing contingency plans” for a “day after” scenario…
Doomsaying about the coming AI apocalypse is no longer relegated to outbursts from a few tech billionaires.
Now, the major American banks whose policies dictate the flow of capital throughout the world are starting to worry about rogue AI, preparing contingency plans for the “day after” a theoretical AI-driven catastrophe.
Our banks are under constant attack now.
The number of AI cyberattacks on our banks is up 89 percent in 2026…
Based on its analysis of threat activity in 2025, the CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report revealed an 89% increase in attacks by adversaries with AI capabilities. Additionally, it recorded the fastest eCrime breakout time of 27 seconds. These results indicate that once an attacker gains access, defenders have less time to respond. Additionally, they emphasize how AI is increasingly acting as a force multiplier in intrusion operations, malware development, social engineering, and reconnaissance.
Thankfully, our banks have always made security a top priority.
But at this stage the attackers are getting better much faster than the defenders are.
This month has been particularly bad, and that is why it is being called “Black October”…
October 2026 has delivered a troubling wave of cybersecurity developments. Hackers have gained access to more powerful tools, while researchers have uncovered serious weaknesses in widely used software. Security professionals are reportedly struggling to keep pace with increasingly automated attacks. Some have started calling the current wave “Black October.”
Most Americans have no idea that this is going on.
AI is transforming our society at a pace that is difficult to comprehend, and the financial industry is no exception.
Last week, Axios was reporting that large numbers of unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts…
Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts, with some agents attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources tell Axios.
The good news is that the vast majority of those unvetted AI agents appear to be accessing accounts with the permission of the owners…
“In a lot of cases, this is just going to be customers giving their username or password to an AI agent that the bank hasn’t had a chance to vet yet, that goes against the bank’s terms of service,” Madison Mills, senior AI reporter for Axios, told CBS News. “In other cases, in our reporting, we did find evidence that appeared to look like agents taking actions in customer accounts that were not authorized.”
Examples of agent behavior that a user never approved include the AI calling a bank with a complaint without first consulting the account holder.
“So, really a nightmare of AI agent activity for banks,” Mills said.
On the other side of the world, financial institutions in South Korea are getting hammered by one giant wave of cyberattacks after another…
South Korea’s financial institutions have been hit by another wave of cyberattacks, highlighting the growing risk of AI-driven hacking in Asia. The latest incidents affect brokerages Daishin Securities and Mirae Asset Global Investments, as well as the crypto exchange Bithumb.
The incident comes roughly a month after a series of cyberattacks targeting South Korean financial institutions, raising concerns about vulnerabilities beyond just the country’s banking systems. Security researchers linked the September wave of attacks on South Korea to a suspected China-based hacker who relied on an AI penetration testing tool called Artex, though officials are still investigating the root cause of the latest breaches.
According to local news, Daishin reported a cyberattack that exposed the personal information of 38,490 customers, including names, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers. The company has notified affected customers, is cooperating with authorities in the investigation, and will compensate for any losses as required by law.
This is a national crisis in South Korea.
But things are even worse in Japan.
In fact, the number of cyberattacks has gotten so high that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi “has ordered a package of emergency measures”…
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has ordered a package of emergency measures to respond to dozens of cyberattacks have disrupted operations at organizations ranging from ride-sharing to local police to national government offices to one of the country’s largest online financial infrastructure providers.
Yes, the situation in Japan really is that bad.
The CEO of one Japanese company that just got attacked has ominously declared that digital commerce “is now on the verge of being completely destroyed by malicious actors”…
At that company—GMO Internet—CEO Masatoshi Kumagai apologized to customers for the problems and the potential exposure of their personal data, still under investigation. But Kumagai noted bigger concerns.
“The cyberspace that I built with my colleagues, believing it would bring smiles to people’s faces, is now on the verge of being completely destroyed by malicious actors,” he wrote in a blog post this week. “The underlying issue is the explosive evolution and misuse of AI technology.”
GMO’s cybersecurity unit has determined that in at least 20 of the recent attacks, hackers misused an AI tool intended to help with penetration testing. The hack of his company might have touched 26,739 servers, he said, with the attackers demanding $50 million in ransom.
He is also warning that “the internet itself is now on the verge of breaking down.”
Of course it isn’t just financial institutions that are in danger.
Theoretically, anything that is connected to the Internet could be attacked.
For example, earlier this month a stunning series of cyberattacks shut down refrigeration systems “at hundreds of stores in France”…
Cyberattacks disrupted European supermarket chains, affecting refrigeration systems at hundreds of stores in France and forcing a major grocer to shut down websites serving customers in Europe and the United States.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told Parliament on Tuesday that about 700 of the country’s 10,000 supermarkets were affected. He said there was no risk to France’s food supplies but acknowledged that the attack “touches the heart of our food security.”
“It was a wake-up call for everyone,” he said.
Refrigeration systems were also recently attacked at military bases here in the United States, and the Pentagon still has no idea who did it…
The Pentagon is treating the spate of mysterious freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the United States in August as a suspected hack, according to four officials familiar with the matter.
One of the officials said the military investigators were in touch with their French counterparts about a similar cyberattack on commercial freezers that disrupted supermarkets there earlier this month.
Reuters was not able to ascertain how far along the Pentagon’s investigation was or whether it had reached any conclusions about what happened or who might be responsible. When asked about the investigation, the Pentagon said that a unit of Cyber Command — the military’s cyber force — was “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners.” It did not elaborate.
If you have a device that is connected to the Internet, it could potentially get attacked.
I know that sounds scary, but that is the world that we live in now.
Could AI cyberattacks cripple our government?
Could AI cyberattacks take down our power grids?
This month, several governments around the world have been urging their citizens to stockpile food, water and other supplies.
Are AI cyberattacks the threat that they want people to prepare for, or is it something else?
I have more questions that I do answers.
But what we do know is that the threat of AI cyberattacks is intensifying with each passing day.
We have been very fortunate up to this point, but one of these days our good fortune may run out very suddenly.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
