Zero Day on Netflix: more marketing than true insights into large cyberattacks

Zero Day, a new mini-series on Netflix, tells us of a supposedly devastating cyberattack that paralyzes the US. But it’s fiction – and just a lazy political soap opera.

When I heard that Netflix was about to release Zero Day, I felt a bit of excitement. Finally, I thought, the masses would realize that cyber threats are just as serious as kinetic ones.

People behind the show kept hyping it up as well, telling the world that the series is a story “about what would happen to the country if there was another attack on the level of 9/11.”

Working here at Cybernews, we’re certainly aware that large-scale cyberattacks can be devastating, paralyzing energy grids, transportation, and infrastructure. We also know it can be terribly difficult to ascertain the guilty party if it wants to hide its tracks. We’ve also explained what zero-day bugs are.

What we don’t know is how a country, let’s say, the US, would react to a major cyberattack – simply because it hasn’t so far happened, ever. The creators of Zero Day say they wanted to show their vision of how it would all unfold, of course.

The problem is that the crisis depicted in the series doesn’t seem real enough. Sure, thousands die, and more are shocked, but then it’s almost as if it’s over, and Robert De Niro’s character, a beloved former president, takes over as the detective-in-chief.

I thought the show could be good as a primer into how cyberattacks work – but it's not. We only get an initial attack and some flashes of its impact but the series then – a mere half an hour later! – dives into political intrigue, conspiracies, and personal dramas.

A nostalgia trip

The usual excuse – that it’s fiction – works only partially because the creators seemingly tried to imagine as realistic a portrayal of Washington in distress as possible. Scratch that: they just took real events and played with them a little.

De Niro’s character is Joe Biden, and the new president, a Black woman named Evelyn Mitchell, is obviously Kamala Harris (Zero Day was completed before Donald Trump’s triumph in the election).

The opposition Speaker of the House is probably Mike Johnson, and Evan Green, a conspiracy theorist with his weird TV show, is definitely Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson.

Needless to say, we also see a tech billionaire. Zero Day shows us a woman, Monica Kidder, but she’s basically depicting Elon Musk. There’s political polarization and online misinformation, too, which are, of course, very real.

But, see, what I wanted from the show was to stay on the topic of the cyberattack longer. I didn’t want the drama which – and I’m trying not to spoil things for the viewer – is essentially a nostalgia trip for the lovers of old-school American politics when bipartisanship was still possible.

I realize this is a show with A-listers on it, and it's on Netflix, meaning they needed to create something simple enough for the masses. But somehow, Mr. Robot and even Leave The World Behind examined the topic of cyberattacks with more rigor.

Zero Day is just a wishy-washy conspiracy thriller with a trace of technology know-how built in. It begins with a cyberattack and evolves into this naive plot where Americans simply clap a good speech.

De Niro delivers a bunch of them. Sadly, in real life, speeches don’t work anymore. The series is just forgettable, and I regret to deem it that way because the cast is great. But the A-listers are probably the only thing saving Zero Day.

Why is everything still so normal, then?

We don’t need a six-part Netflix thriller to know more about what’s wrong with America right now. We can just turn on the news – modern surveillance is very real as are shady billionaires controlling the spin on social media.

The Trump White House is incredibly busy disrupting people’s trust in the laws and norms they were taught to believe in, and it doesn’t look like there’s a way out of this mess.

Zero Day wants the viewer to think we just have to tell the truth, and it’ll be alright – well, good luck with that. In the show, though, while searching for alleged truths America can torture suspects and take away their constitutional rights so, again, good luck.

We don’t need a six-part Netflix thriller to know more about what’s wrong with America right now. We can just turn on the news.

I can only credit the people behind the show for being honest about the fact that the kind of cyberattack depicted in the show is hardly possible IRL.

“I don’t think people should stay up at night worried that their internet's going to go out. I think, for the most part, we’ve got really smart people that are on this kind of stuff,” said cybersecurity expert Clint Watts, a former special agent for the FBI.

Great. Let’s not pretend Zero Day is even possible, then. Maybe that’s why everything looks pretty normal after the cyberattack – a bit of rioting and a couple of trains crashing, yes, but America still wakes up and goes to work every day.

Think what you want about Mr. Robot, but that particular show managed to not preach but stylishly discuss the ramifications of technology on the world at large in the current late capitalist era.

That show stayed on course, in other words, while Zero Day tries to be too many things to too many people. As a cautionary tale, it’s sadly, laughable.