Led by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, a Washington, D. C., policy think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, Tuesday hosted a rare Cyber ShockWave exercise which witnessed a group of national security and cybersecurity experts grappling with the doomsday cyberattacks scenario.

The one-of-its-kind public cyber-war game, which was a collaborative creation of 10 ex-White House advisors and other top officials, was chiefly designed to underscore the potential defenselessness of the country's digital infrastructure to a crippling cyberattack.

The cyber-war game unfolded a scenario wherein one free downloadable application turns smartphones into network-jamming bots - thereby leading to the failure of US mobile-phone networks, and in due course spreading to the wired Internet.

The March Madness app, which was downloaded by unsuspecting college football fans, hid spyware that allowed hackers to steal passwords, seize e-mails and create chaos. The scenario saw 60 million mobile phones being rendered ineffective; along with the crash of the Internet, a virtual collapse of finance and commerce, and the breakdown of the country's electric grid.

The situation also had some White House officials arguing that the massive cyberattack should be declared an act of war by the US president, and the US military be mobilized into action.

Developed by Georgetown University and a number of companies, including PayPal, Tuesday's worst-case scenario, which will be aired later on CNN, would undoubtedly overwhelm the administration's proposed cyber defenses.