The experts I spoke with were divided on how much you or I should do in anticipation of possible attacks. “I do not think that ordinary Americans need to be taking any physical actions such as buying gas or taking cash out of the bank,” Jessica Beyer, a co-lead of the University of Washington’s Cybersecurity Initiative, told me in an email. Digitally stored files are not at great risk, she said, because “​the major cloud computing companies have robust security in place.” CISA, for its part, told me that although “there is not currently a specific, credible cyber threat to the U.S.,” Americans should keep their devices updated, choose strong passwords, and use multifactor authentication. Daniel agreed, and emphasized that the current risk profile doesn’t call for much more action. “What we don’t want to do,” he said pointedly, is create “bank runs and shortages of gasoline by self-induced panic.”

Lin said that people might be wise to engage in some modest prepper behavior, such as having extra cash on hand, packing emergency kits, and keeping a few gallons of water per person—but then again, he said, these are things that people should always be doing, if they have the money. He also said that essential services such as power and water in urban areas might be more tempting targets than those in rural ones, and that the closer a person is to organizations of national-security significance, the more vigilant they’ll need to be. “I would not want to be the partner of a senior American general right now,” he said.