Original subtitles

NEW AND FRIGHTENING WARNING FROM THE FBI

ON HACKERS USING MALICIOUS SOFTWARE

TO LAUNCH A CYBER ATTACK AGAINST US BUSINESSES.

IN SOME WAYS, IT'S A WHOLE NEW WAY OF MAKING WARFARE,

AND I DON'T THINK THAT THAT OVERSTATES IT ONE BIT.

THERE IS A CYBER WAR GOING ON.

The United States started that cyber war.

THE FIRST CYBER WEAPON

TO THREATEN TO DAMAGE TARGETS IN THE REAL WORLD.

HACKERS IN PLACES LIKE CHINA, NORTH KOREA, IRAN, ELSEWHERE,

ARE EXHIBITING THE CAPABILITY TO HIT THE POWER GRID.

CHINESE STATE-BACKED HACKERS

HAVE BEEN MOBILIZED

ANYTHING TO DO WITH COVID-19 RELATED RESEARCH.

MANY OF THE THREATS IN THE 21ST CENTURY WILL BE IN CYBER:

MISINFORMATION, DISINFORMATION.

YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER.

WHATSAPP? INSTAGRAM?

We are human species. We can be hacked.

RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HACKERS

HAVE BREACHED THE NETWORK OF THE DNC.

I don't think anybody knows it was Russia.

RUSSIA, CHINA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES

ARE COLLECTING STOLEN INFORMATION FROM HACKERS.

TODAY WE FACE THREATS

THAT HAVE INCREASED IN SOPHISTICATION,

magnitude, intensity, volume, and velocity.

What about the confidence in the vote?

ESPECIALLY AGAINST THE BACKDROP

OF THE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN 2016.

THEY'RE INVOLVED GOING AFTER ME ON FACEBOOK.

Because Putin knows me,

and I know him, and he doesn't want me to be president.

PRESIDENT TRUMP CLAIMED WITHOUT EVIDENCE,

QUOTE, "RIGGED 2020 ELECTION WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES."

Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?

I have to see.

Announcer: MADAM SPEAKER,

the President of the United States.

AT THE END OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION,

PRESIDENT BUSH DECIDED HE HAD TO STOP

THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iran,

and made it clear that the world will not allow the regime in Tehran

to acquire nuclear weapons.

But he had a problem.

MY SECOND PURPOSE TODAY IS TO SHARE WITH YOU

what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...

We had just gone to a war in Iraq

on the false pretense that Iraq had a nuclear weapon.

SO THERE WAS NO WAY HE WAS GOING TO BE ABLE TO

PUBLICLY CONVINCE THE WORLD

TO GET INTO A CONFLICT WITH IRAN OVER ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM.

ONE DAY, A GROUP OF INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS

AND MILITARY OFFICERS

CAME TO THE PRESIDENT AND SAID, "SIR, WE HAVE ANOTHER WAY."

THEY TOLD BUSH THAT A JOINT ISRAELI-AMERICAN CYBER TEAM

HAD DESIGNED SOME CODE

THAT COULD GET INTO THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR CONTROL SYSTEM.

UNTIL THEN, COUNTRIES WERE USING CYBER TO STEAL DATA.

TO SPY ON EACH OTHER.

BUT ALMOST NO ONE HAD USED CYBER AS AN OFFENSIVE WEAPON.

THE PLAN WAS

A PIECE OF MALWARE WOULD BE DELIVERED

INTO THE INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEMS

running the Iranian nuclear program.

THIS NETWORK WAS AIR GAPPED.

IN OTHER WORDS, IT'S NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET.

So you had to have ways in which the code could jump onto those computers.

THERE'S STILL SOME MYSTERY ABOUT EXACTLY HOW THIS CODE

MADE IT FROM THE NSA AND THE ISRAELI CYBER UNIT

INTO THE NATANZ PLANT.

THERE ARE MANY WAYS,

INCLUDING SLIPPING IN A USB KEY.

BUT WE ALSO NOW KNOW

THAT THE NSA HAD DESIGNED A BRILLIANT SMALL SYSTEM,

ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BRIEFCASE,

THAT COULD WORK FROM SIX OR SEVEN MILES AWAY,

BEAMING COMPUTER CODE INTO A COMPUTER

THAT HAD BEEN SET UP WITH A RECEIVER CHIP.

AND THAT DEVICE COULD BE USED

not only to put code in,

but later to replace it and update it.

Hultquist: ONCE THEY GOT IN,

THE CODE STARTED UNLOCKING ITSELF,

AND IT STARTED TWO MAJOR TASKS.

The first one was to record

everything that the operator would be saying,

and essentially, put that on a loop.

SO THAT EVERY DAY, WHEN THE OPERATOR CAME IN TO WORK,

EVERYTHING WOULD LOOK JUST FINE.

IT'S SORT OF LIKE A CLASSIC HEIST MOVIE

WHERE THE SURVEILLANCE VIDEO IS RUN ON A LOOP,

AND THE GUARD NEVER KNOWS WHAT'S ACTUALLY GOING ON.

While at the same time, somebody's breaking in and stealing something.

THE IRANIANS WERE THINKING THE WHOLE TIME

THAT THEY'RE MAKING PROGRESS.

That they're moving towards their goal,

when in fact, these systems are deadlined.

BECAUSE THE SECOND TASK FOR THE CODE

WAS TO TAKE THE CENTRIFUGES AND BREAK THEM.

This code was so ingenious

that not only did it have this sort of fake video,

pay no attention to what's going on here,

it would lie in wait.

And so days would go by,

where the centrifuges were spinning exactly as they were supposed to.

And then all of a sudden, they'd speed up really fast.

And then when you'd turn to look,

they would slow down to the regular speed.

And eventually what happens when you do this

to these finely tuned machines,

is that they break themselves apart.

WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA HAD THAT TRADITIONAL MEETING

WITH HIS PREDECESSOR, GEORGE BUSH,

BUSH TOLD HIM THAT THERE WERE TWO PROGRAMS

HE HAD TO MAKE SURE THAT HE PRESERVED.

One of them was the drone program.

THE SECOND PROGRAM WAS "OLYMPIC GAMES,"

the code name for the program against Iran.

SUDDENLY, IN HIS FIRST MONTHS IN OFFICE,

PRESIDENT OBAMA FINDS HIMSELF IN THE SITUATION ROOM,

PICKING OUT CENTRIFUGES TO ATTACK.

FOR A WHILE, THE IRANIANS HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON.

THEY DIDN'T KNOW IF THEY HAD MADE ENGINEERING ERRORS,

WHETHER THEY HAD BAD PARTS.

They suspected sabotage, but couldn't prove it.

Until one day, when the code got out.

THIS CODE IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO GO INTO ONE FACILITY,

AND IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE KNOWN TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.

INSTEAD, IT ESCAPES THE BOX.

It gets out of that facility and begins to spread around the world.

THESE ARE THE LETTERS AND NUMBERS

BEHIND THE SO-CALLED STUXNET VIRUS.

IT BEGINS WITH A SIMPLE USB KEY.

THEN WITH SURGICAL PRECISION,

PENETRATES SOME OF THE WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED COMPUTER SECURITY.

ITS CREATORS HID THEIR TRACKS SO WELL,

EXPERTS SAY WE WILL LIKELY NEVER KNOW WHO CREATED IT.

AS WE BEGAN TO HEAR ABOUT

THIS INCREDIBLY SOPHISTICATED PIECE OF CODE

THAT THE INDUSTRY WAS CALLING STUXNET,

I BEGAN TO RECONSTRUCT THE STORY

OF WHO AUTHORIZED THIS CODE TO BE WRITTEN.

NEITHER ISRAEL NOR THE US

had publicly admitted that this was designed by them.

You did that without at all mentioning Stuxnet or Olympic Games.

That was, that was impressive.

I never heard of those.

Can you talk about Stuxnet?

-It's years ago. That-- One thing that--

I don't want to talk about it, okay?

It's just that, it's a mystery.

I don't want to talk about it.

Let me know if I'm not-- If I'm being too subtle, okay?

THIS IS THE FIRST WORM DESIGNED TO DAMAGE THE PHYSICAL WORLD.

IT'S A NEW DIMENSION IN SABOTAGE AND WARFARE.

The implications and the possible consequences

are only now coming to light.

THE STUXNET ATTACK ON IRAN

was the first time a major state

used a powerful cyber weapon

in a very aggressive way.

PEOPLE KNEW THAT THE US GOVERNMENT

HAD BEEN DEVELOPING TOOLS

THAT CAN MANIPULATE COMPUTER SYSTEMS

TO CREATE EFFECTS IN THE REAL WORLD.

STUXNET WAS THE FIRST BIG EXAMPLE OF THAT HAPPENING.

Here's what it looks like, here's how sophisticated it is,

and here's what it can do.

YOU TAKE THAT SAME PRINCIPLE,

YOU COULD SHUT DOWN AN AIRPORT WITH A SIMILAR TOOL.

YOU COULD SHUT DOWN AN ELECTRICAL GRID WITH A SIMILAR TOOL.

YOU COULD SHUT DOWN A GAS PIPELINE WITH A SIMILAR TOOL.

So these things that were speculative

suddenly become real.

The question is, if you're the first mover there,

have you now said, "That's fair game for everybody."

They've crossed the Rubicon.

THE UNITED STATES HAD BASICALLY LEGITIMIZED

THE USE OF CYBER

AS A WEAPON AGAINST ANOTHER COUNTRY

AGAINST WHOM YOU HAD NOT DECLARED WAR.

It pushed the world into an entirely new territory.

ONCE THE IRANIANS TOOK THE PUNCH,

Iran said, "Oh, that's the way the game is played.

All right, I get this now."

And then they started to unleash

against the United States.

IN 2013, IT'S CLEAR THAT IRAN IS STILL WORKING TOWARDS

A NUCLEAR WEAPON.

AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IN THE US

IS TRYING TO START NEGOTIATIONS

TO SORT OF COAX THEM AWAY FROM THAT.

In October of 2013, there's a panel.

There are several people on it,

but the really interesting person

that comes to talk on the panel is Sheldon Adelson.

SHELDON ADELSON IS ONE OF THE RICHEST MEN IN THE WORLD.

HE'S A CASINO MAGNATE.

HE'S GOT CASINOS OFF CHINA,

HE'S GOT A MAJOR CASINO IN SINGAPORE.

He's got two major casinos in Las Vegas,

and that's really where he made his money.

THE BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN

WHO MADE A FORTUNE WITH CASINOS

GAVE MORE THAN $92 MILLION

TO CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES IN THE 2012 RACE.

ONE OF HIS MOST FAMOUS THINGS IS

an effort to spend a hundred million dollars

to make sure that Obama doesn't get elected to a second term.

You've got to really dislike me...

...to spend that kind of money.

And he's very clear, and,

and full-throated about his opinions.

How are you able to be so outspoken?

I flunked diplomacy 101.

ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO IRAN,

and when it comes to these negotiations in particular.

Wait, so you would support

negotiations with Iran currently,

so long as they first seized all enrichment of uranium?

No. What do you mean support nego--

What are we going to negotiate about?

What I would say is... Listen.

You see that desert out there?

I want to show you something.

You pick up your cell phone,

and you call somewhere in Nebraska,

and you say, "Okay, let it go."

So there's an atomic weapon goes over ballistic missiles

in the middle of the desert that doesn't hurt a soul.

Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes and scorpions or whatever.

And then, and then you say, "See?

The next one is in the middle of Tehran."

So, we mean business.

And that was not taken well in Iran.

SEE? THE NEXT ONE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF TEHRAN.

SOMEBODY GETS A YOUTUBE CLIP OF THIS.

IT GOES UP.

Doesn't take long before Iran notices it.

IT'S CLEAR THAT IRAN WANTS TO PUNISH ADELSON.

And they want to make it hurt.

CASINOS ARE BASICALLY BIG BANKS, RIGHT?

THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT GOES IN AND OUT OF A CASINO IN A DAY

IS MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

AND SO, CASINOS SPEND AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY ON PHYSICAL SECURITY.

ON CAMERAS, ON SECURITY GUARDS, ON VAULTS.

Like, the things that you would do to protect

chips and cash.

BUT AS FAR AS THEIR IT INFRASTRUCTURE,

WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?

SO, AROUND DECEMBER 2013,

HACKERS IN IRAN START LOOKING FOR A WEAK LINK

INTO SANDS CORP'S NETWORK.

And the hackers just ultimately get lucky.

A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER HAD COME FROM LAS VEGAS,

WAS WORKING AT A SMALL CASINO IN BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA,

THAT'S PART OF THE SANDS CORP EMPIRE,

AND HAD USED HIS CREDENTIALS

TO GET ONTO ONE OF THE MACHINES IN BETHLEHEM,

AND THE HACKERS FOUND HIM.

THOSE CREDENTIALS ALLOWED THEM TO GET INTO THE BETHLEHEM NETWORK.

AND THEN, FROM BETHLEHEM,

TO LAS VEGAS, WHICH IS REALLY WHERE THEY WANTED TO BE.

THEY'D START KIND OF SLOWLY,

BUT BY EARLY FEBRUARY,

THEY RELEASE A FEW HUNDRED LINES OF CODE,

which is designed to, not to steal information,

but to destroy computers.

To, to override information. To really create chaos

within Sands Corp's network.

I RECEIVED A PHONE CALL

FROM A SUPPORT DESK MANAGER

AT ABOUT 4:00 A.M.

The support desk manager had been receiving calls

telling her that people's emails were getting locked up.

Some of the engineers tried to look into

what might be the cause of it,

and they couldn't get in.

I WOULDN'T SAY THAT THEY WERE PANICKED.

I WOULD SAY THAT THERE WAS, UM,

AN EXTREME SENSE OF URGENCY.

IN THE MORNING, SOMETIMES I CHECK MY EMAIL.

And I couldn't get to anything.

FIRST THING I THOUGHT IS, SOMEONE'S GONNA CALL ME AND YELL AT ME,

BECAUSE PROBABLY THE SOFTWARE IS DOWN.

MINUTES OF A SOFTWARE OUTAGE

CAN AMOUNT TO A LOSS OF A SERIOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY.

We were getting reports left and right

of people not being able to access their computers.

Our internal systems, our email, our way to communicate.

Accounting, was, like, paralyzed,

and that place is all accountants.

I mean, everybody in the back that isn't IT

is in some kind of finance team.

As the guys kept digging into it more and more,

a sense of, like, "Holy shit, this is huge.

Like, the damage is massive."

AT SOME POINT IN TIME, WE MADE A DECISION

THAT EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TURN OFF THEIR COMPUTERS.

We basically had teams go out and unplug desktop machines.

WE WERE GOING TO PCS ON THE CASINO FLOOR

IN THE PITS, AND AT THE PLAYER'S CLUB,

AND IN THE CAGE,

and taking them offline one at a time.

Scanning 'em, cleaning 'em.

WE KNEW AT THAT TIME THIS WAS A POSSIBLE HACK.

But I still thought it was a singular event.

That we were basically doing damage control.

But there were things that popped up

that indicated that it wasn't somebody hacking

just for the sake of hacking.

It was a political statement.

THE LAS VEGAS SANDS WEBSITE HAD BEEN DEFACED,

TO SHOW AN IMAGE OF THE GLOBE

WITH VARIOUS LOCATIONS OF THE WORLD ON FIRE.

I REMEMBER FLAMES,

AND SOMETHING ABOUT ADELSON AND CUTTING OFF HIS TONGUE.

WE WERE ALL CURIOUS AS TO WHO DID IT,

AND THEN WHEN WE SAW WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THE WEBSITE,

IT WAS LIKE, "OH.

WELL, THIS IS A REACTION TO WHAT MR. ADELSON HAD SAID."

YOU KNOW, MY STOMACH SANK. IT WAS LIKE,

excuse my language, like, "Holy shit."

THIS IS REAL.

A CASCADING ATTACK. SERVERS SHUT DOWN.

SCREENS GO BLANK. A RUSH TO UNPLUG COMPUTERS.

THIS ATTACK HIT THE WORLD'S LARGEST CASINO OPERATION

TEN MONTHS AGO.

Sands Corp was able to keep it secret for months,

and to keep the scale, especially, of the attacks, secret for months.

CNN HAS LEARNED ON FEBRUARY 10TH OF THIS YEAR,

THOUSANDS OF EMPLOYEES AT SANDS CASINOS IN LAS VEGAS

AND BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, HAD THEIR COMPUTERS HIT.

THEY DIDN'T WANT TO GET THIS OUT.

They wanted controlled communications,

is what I will say.

THAT COMMENT THAT ADELSON MADE ON THAT STAGE

was a very expensive comment to make.

THE COST OF THE ATTACK AND RECOVERING FROM THE ATTACK

WAS ABOUT $40 MILLION.

It cost the Iranians far less than $40 million.

I mean, that's the thing about the asymmetry of these attacks

is hackers working in a team for a few days,

YOU KNOW, THEY STARTED PROBING IN DECEMBER.

YOU KNOW, A COUPLE OF TEAMS GOT REALLY ACTIVE FOR A FEW DAYS IN JANUARY,

AND IN FEBRUARY, THEY UNLEASHED THE ATTACK.

You know, that's a very low-cost attack from a nation-state point of view.

THE SANDS CASINO ATTACK WAS A WARNING SHOT.

IT WAS A REINFORCEMENT OF THE THOUGHT

THAT A MIDDLING POWER LIKE IRAN

COULD SHUT DOWN A BIG ECONOMIC ENTERPRISE

IN THE UNITED STATES.

AND THAT IF THE SANDS CASINO COULD BE BROUGHT DOWN,

SO COULD THE REST OF VEGAS.

And what happened in Vegas wouldn't stay in Vegas.

THE EVOLUTION OF CYBER HAS HAPPENED VERY QUICKLY,

IN TERMS OF ITS IMPORTANCE TO THE UNITED STATES,

and the organizational dimension of it in the US government.

IN 2007, THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

ISSUES A THREAT ASSESSMENT OF ALL THE THREATS AGAINST THE COUNTRY.

THE WORD "CYBER" ISN'T IN IT A SINGLE TIME.

FAST FORWARD JUST A COUPLE OF YEARS,

YOU HAD THE CREATION OF CYBER COMMAND.

Fast forward a couple more years, it's 2012.

SUDDENLY CYBER HAS GONE FROM NOT BEING MENTIONED AT ALL

IN THOSE THREAT ASSESSMENTS,

TO BEING ONE OF THE TOP THREE THREATS

FACING THE UNITED STATES.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PANETTA

GOES ON BOARD THE INTREPID, WHICH IS AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER MUSEUM--

I THINK THE BACKGROUND IS NOT A COINCIDENCE--

AND TALKS ABOUT A CYBER PEARL HARBOR.

We know that foreign cyber actors

ARE PROBING AMERICA'S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORKS.

THEY ARE TARGETING THE COMPUTER CONTROL SYSTEMS

THAT OPERATE CHEMICAL, ELECTRICITY, AND WATER PLANTS,

AND THOSE THAT GUIDE TRANSPORTATION

THROUGHOUT THIS COUNTRY.

THE COLLECTIVE RESULT OF THESE KINDS OF ATTACKS

COULD BE A CYBER PEARL HARBOR.

AND AS PEOPLE WERE WARNED ABOUT THIS NOTION OF THE CYBER PEARL HARBOR,

what they seem to miss was, in fact,

that the US had set up a regime where,

if they, if Russia took down the electrical grid

or if China took down a, a gas pipeline,

they should expect a military response.

THE GOVERNMENT HAD PLANS FOR A MASSIVE, KIND OF,

MAJOR ATTACK AGAINST THE ELECTRICAL GRID.

WHAT THEY DIDN'T REALLY HAVE PLANS FOR WAS

this kind of, like, incremental, hit a company,

you know, destroy its brand.

Destroy its capacity to do business.

HOW ARE WE GONNA RESPOND, AS THE US GOVERNMENT,

TO THOSE KINDS OF ATTACKS?

I STARTED WITH JUST A HUGE FASCINATION

WITH NORTH KOREA.

Me and my writing partner Evan would read articles and books

and watch documentaries, and it was just, like,

endlessly fascinating to us.

Uh, who is it?

It is, uh, Kim Jong-un.

What?

AND THEN WHEN KIM JONG-UN TOOK OVER

is when the idea really expanded in our heads,

because we realized he was around our age,

um, and we read more about his life,

and he weirdly was like a very sympathetic character

in, in some ways.

WE CAME UP WITH THIS STORY ABOUT A GUY WHO HOSTS

A VERY EXPLOITATIVE LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW.

KIM JONG-UN IS A BIG FAN OF HIS TV SHOW.

SO WE GET AN INTERVIEW WITH HIM.

AND THEN THE CIA SAYS,

because we are gonna be the first Americans,

you know, face-to-face with him in a long time,

uh, we could kill him.

WE PITCHED THE IDEA TO SONY,

AND THEY BASICALLY SAID, LIKE,

"If you get James Franco in this,

we'll make this movie right away."

And we were like, "Okay."

IF I RECALL CORRECTLY,

IT WAS THEM WHO SUGGESTED THAT WE MAKE IT ACTUALLY

KIM JONG-UN.

It was something that, like, we were maybe, we were like,

"Should we make up a guy?

Is that too much?" Um, and,

Sony suggested, like, "Well, just call him Kim Jong-un.

It's probably funnier that way." Okay.

SO, WHEN THE TRAILER COMES OUT,

NORTH KOREA RELEASES A STATEMENT THROUGH THE UN

condemning the movie.

NORTH KOREA IS ACCUSING THE UNITED STATES

OF "PROVOCATIVE INSANITY." AN "ACT OF WAR."

AND PROMISING "A DECISIVE AND MERCILESS COUNTERMEASURE"

IF THE US SUPPORTS THE RELEASE OF THE FILM.

WE WERE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND HOW SERIOUSLY TO TAKE THIS

AND WHETHER THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT WE SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT.

I called a friend of mine at the State Department

who directed me to the person who knew about the subject.

THEY SAID THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT

TENDS TO BE PRONE TO MAKE A LOT OF THREATS.

BUT ALMOST NEVER CARRIED OUT ON THOSE THREATS.

And they would certainly never

be able to carry out on a threat on US soil.

There was no mention whatsoever of cyber.

AROUND THEN, CONVERSATIONS STARTED TO COME UP,

OF LIKE, "SHOULD WE TONE IT DOWN A BIT?"

The idea that maybe, uh,

killing Kim Jong-un so graphically was maybe, um,

extra antagonistic.

Lynton: SETH ROGEN AND HIS GROUP WERE VERY RESISTANT.

THEY FELT THAT IT ADDED TO THE SATIRE.

IT WAS A LOT OF BACK AND FORTH AND THERE WAS A LITTLE BIT OF ARGUMENT ABOUT IT.

BUT WE ULTIMATELY CAME TO A COMPROMISE, I THINK.

AT THAT POINT, WE FELT THAT WE HAD TAKEN ALL THE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS.

We made the changes to the picture that,

you know, Sony felt, or that my, my employer felt was,

was necessary and, you know,

the rest was about getting the movie out.

IN NORTH KOREA,

THE RECONNAISSANCE GENERAL BUREAU,

WHICH IS THE NORTH KOREAN EQUIVALENT OF THE CIA,

DISPATCHED A YOUNG HACKER

TO GO TO CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

AND PUT TOGETHER A TEAM THAT WOULD BREAK INTO SONY'S SYSTEMS.

JIM CLAPPER WENT TO NORTH KOREA

DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE SONY HACK,

AND MET THE HEAD OF THE RECONNAISSANCE GENERAL BUREAU.

HE WAS TRYING TO GET THE RELEASE OF TWO AMERICANS THERE

WHILE THE HACK WAS UNDERWAY.

AND HE NEVER RAISED IT BECAUSE HE NEVER KNEW IT WAS HAPPENING.

The North Koreans went about this patiently,

and somewhat brilliantly.

IN SEPTEMBER OF 2014, THEY BROKE INTO THE SONY SYSTEMS.

BUT THEY DIDN'T THEN JUST TURN AROUND AND ATTACK.

THEY SPENT WEEKS EXAMINING

HOW EACH ELEMENT OF SONY'S OPERATIONS

WERE TIED INTO THE COMPUTER SYSTEM.

THEY LURKED IN THE SYSTEM LONG ENOUGH

TO FIGURE OUT HOW THEY COULD DO MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

And it wasn't until just around Thanksgiving,

two months later, that they struck.

Lynton: I WAS DRIVING TO WORK. MY PHONE RANG IN THE CAR.

THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER OF THE COMPANY RANG ME UP

AND HE SAID, "WE HAVE A REAL PROBLEM AT WORK.

ALL THE EMAIL HAS GONE DOWN."

Nobody was able to retrieve any data.

And as the day progressed, it became quickly evident

that it was way beyond that. That in fact, we had...

Pretty much 70 percent of our computers had been knocked out of action.

Had been ruined, frankly.

SERIOUS BREACH AT SONY PICTURES LAST WEEK.

A SKELETON APPEARED ON THE SONY PICTURE COMPUTERS

WITH A SMALL MESSAGE THAT CLAIMED THEY'D BEEN HACKED BY A GROUP

CALLING ITSELF "GUARDIANS OF PEACE."

WHOEVER THEY ARE, THE GUARDIANS OF PEACE

HAVE ALREADY DONE REAL DAMAGE.

EMPLOYEES COMMUNICATED WITH A PHONE TREE,

AND PAID PEOPLE WITH PAPER CHECKS CUT BY A MACHINE PULLED FROM STORAGE.

SONY, BY THE TIME THIS IS DONE,

IS GONNA LOSE TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

JUST RECOVERING FROM THIS ATTACK.

It's a huge cost, just in terms of the impact of the IT infrastructure.

But more importantly, it's a huge cost to the brand,

because they steal a lot of data in this attack,

and then they start releasing it publicly.

TINSELTOWN'S DIRTY LAUNDRY

IS LAID OUT IN PLAIN VIEW.

And it is not pretty.

THE STUDIO'S CO-CHAIRMAN

AND A POWERFUL HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER

USED RACIAL JOKES TO MOCK PRESIDENT OBAMA.

A TOP PRODUCER CRITICIZING

ANGELINA JOLIE'S TALENT AND EGO.

These are juicy.

WE HAD SEEN CRIMINAL HACKERS AND HACKTIVISTS

USE THIS HACK AND DUMP TECHNIQUE

TO INTIMIDATE VICTIMS ON A SMALL SCALE.

That was the first time we had seen a nation-state

do it very effectively.

The first thing that the North Koreans did

was give it to reporters.

And then, when they've exhausted that channel,

they gave it to WikiLeaks.

THIS WAS ALL VERY VALUABLE INFORMATION TO THE COMPANY.

TRADE SECRETS, LIKE SCRIPTS BEFORE MOVIES WERE RELEASED,

DETAILED CONTRACT INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT HAD BEEN PAID TO WHOM.

By the way, Seth Rogen made two million dollars more

-than co-star James Franco. -Mm...

You wouldn't assume someone's stolen property

was instantly going to be made

available for public consumption

by the media.

SONY WERE THE VICTIMS OF A CRIME.

AND THEN THE MEDIA TOOK THE VICTIMS OF A CRIME

and made it a hundred million times worse.

You want us to assassinate the leader of North Korea?

-Yes. -What?

James Franco, Seth Rogen here right now.

And that's what the whole world is doing right now, saying, "What?"

I GO TO NEW YORK

TO, LIKE, DO THE FINAL WEEK OF PROMOTION FOR THE FILM.

IT'S A VERY WEIRD THING TO DO.

To promote a thing that is causing the world

distress at that moment.

And that's when, like, it really ratcheted up a notch.

The hackers made a threat against anyone who goes to see Sony's new film.

THIS MESSAGE WARNS MOVIE-GOERS TO STAY AWAY FROM THEATERS.

THE GROUP IS THREATENING TO DELIVER WHAT IT CALLS ITS "CHRISTMAS GIFT."

I literally got on a plane and left New York in the middle of my press tour.

I think I was, like, on the way to do "Jimmy Fallon,"

and I was like, "Let's go to the airport. Like...

I don't think this movie's coming out, guys."

AND I WENT BACK TO LA, AND WENT TO SONY,

AND WAS LIKE, "WHAT'S THE PLAN? LIKE, IS IT GONNA BE PULLED FROM THEATERS?

It seems like people don't want to play the movie anymore."

Lynton: WHEN THE EMAIL CAME OUT THAT INVOLVED PHYSICAL THREATS,

there was a lot of conversations with the theaters that happened

where they were asking to delay the release of the picture.

I think Michael Lynton didn't want to leave the theater owners,

you know, looking like the bad guy.

So, he then was like, "I'm gonna pull the movie.

"I'm just gonna say... it's... it's, it's pulled.

"And we all need to come as like a united front,

and say that that's what we want."

And we were like, "Absolutely not."

TODAY, SONY CANCELLED THE CHRISTMAS DAY RELEASE

OF "THE INTERVIEW."

THE HACKERS WIN.

I DON'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO FRAME IT

NOW THAT SONY HAS CANCELLED

THE RELEASE OF "THE INTERVIEW,"

THAT SPOOF ABOUT NORTH KOREA

STARRING JAMES FRANCO AND SETH ROGEN.

A COUPLE DAYS LATER,

WE WERE ALL GATHERED IN OUR BUNGALOW ON THE SONY LOT.

And they were like, "There's a press conference coming,

and Obama's gonna talk about it, I think."

And we, we were like, "He's not gonna talk about it."

Like, and it was like the first question.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh,

let's start on North Korea, 'cause that seems to be

the, uh, biggest topic today.

Uh, what does a proportional response look like,

uh, to the Sony hack?

The question at that time was, well, how serious a deal is this?

And before you knew it, it was an international security incident

that involved the president of the United States.

Hurd: IF NORTH KOREA LAUNCHED A MISSILE

into San Francisco,

everybody knows what the United States of America, our response would be.

Right? That's a physical-on-physical attack.

But what is a digital-on-digital attack,

and what is the appropriate response?

John McCain at the time said, "This is an act of war."

It's a new form of warfare that we're involved in,

and we need to react, and react vigorously.

President Obama didn't want to go there.

WHEN WE WERE IN THOSE CONVERSATIONS

BOTH IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

AND IN THE WHITE HOUSE,

you fear that if you go too hard

against the North Koreans,

it becomes a real military conflict.

THE LAST THING YOU WANT

IS TO DO SOMETHING THAT ESCALATES IT,

and the North Koreans then hit the US back

in our critical infrastructure, right?

We didn't know whether they were in the grid

and could take something down.

We will respond. Uh, we will respond proportionally,

and we'll respond, uh, in a place and time,

uh, and manner, that we choose.

It's not something that I will announce,

uh, here today at a press conference.

No one really knows what the US government did to North Korea.

There are press reports that suggest that

not long after the Sony hack,

suddenly, uh, North Korea's internet went down.

EVEN IF IT WERE THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

THAT SHUT DOWN THE INTERNET OF NORTH KOREA,

AT THE TIME, NORTH KOREA HAD 28 WEBSITES.

SO THE UNITED STATES IS FAR MORE VULNERABLE

to cyber attacks than many of the countries that are trying to attack us.

Lynton: THE PRESIDENT DIDN'T NECESSARILY

have a response to that, to them,

AND SO, HE CHOSE TO TALK ABOUT SONY.

We cannot have a society

in which some dictator someplace

can start imposing censorship here in the United States.

He was like, "Yeah, theaters should play it."

Um, "We shouldn't succumb to these threats."

And we were all like, "Great!"

BUT EVERYONE JUST BAILED.

Lynton: THERE WAS CERTAINLY DISAPPOINTMENT

ON THE PART OF THE FILMMAKERS

that they weren't gonna see the movie in, you know,

in theaters all across the country.

We reassured them that we intended to put the movie out.

I called Eric Schmidt at Google.

HE AND THE FOLKS AT GOOGLE FELT THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT

THAT THE PICTURE GET OUT, AND THEY OFFERED TO PUT IT OUT ON THEIR PLATFORM.

ULTIMATELY,

THEY LET THE THEATERS WHO WANTED TO PLAY IT PLAY IT.

IT WAS IN, LIKE, 20 THEATERS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

Um, I think it is still Google Play's

number one ever downloaded movie.

AND ALSO, THE SCENE IS RELEASED.

"THE VERGE" OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

GOES THROUGH THE HACKED FOOTAGE,

FINDS THE SHOT OF KIM JONG-UN'S HEAD EXPLODING,

and releases just that online for everyone to just see.

THIS WAS A BIG DEAL.

THAT A COUNTRY THAT IS SO POOR,

AND HAS ONLY TEN PERCENT OF ITS POPULATION WITH CELL PHONES,

COULD ACTUALLY WAGE A CYBER ATTACK

AGAINST ONE OF OUR MOST POWERFUL MOVIE STUDIOS

AND A MAJOR CORPORATION, AND CREATE AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS.

Hurd: THE SONY ATTACK CHANGED THE PUBLIC'S PERCEPTION

OF WHAT A CYBER ATTACK WAS.

PRIOR TO SONY, PEOPLE BELIEVED,

"OH, SOMEBODY'S TRYING TO STEAL MY CREDIT CARD INFORMATION."

"THEY'RE TRYING TO STEAL MY SOCIAL SECURITY IN ORDER TO COMMIT FRAUD."

SONY WAS PURELY AN ATTACK TO DESTROY.

2014 SAW, FOR THE FIRST TIME,

DESTRUCTIVE CYBER ATTACKS CARRIED OUT ON US SOIL

BY NATION-STATE ENTITIES.

MARKED FIRST BY THE IRANIAN ATTACK

AGAINST THE LAS VEGAS SANDS CASINO CORPORATION

A YEAR AGO THIS MONTH,

AND THE NORTH KOREAN ATTACK AGAINST SONY IN NOVEMBER.

While the both of these nations have lesser technical capabilities

in comparison to Russia and China,

these destructive attacks demonstrate that

Iran and North Korea are motivated and unpredictable cyber actors.

Russia and China continue to develop

very sophisticated cyber programs.

And while I can't go into detail here,

the Russian cyber threat is more severe

than we had previously assessed.

THESE DAYS, ONE MUST ALWAYS GET HIRED BY THE LAWYERS,

BECAUSE THE LAWYERS ARE THE FIRST CALL OF A COMPANY THAT GETS HACKED.

Because there might be lawsuits that would follow

from, uh, from the announcement over the breach,

so, very, very typically we get a call from a law firm that says,

"One of our clients, uh, thinks they may have an issue.

Can you come in and help them?"

In this case, it was the DNC.

THE CALL CAME ON A FRIDAY,

SO IT TOOK US A FEW DAYS FOR US TO GO INTO THE NETWORK

AND FIND INFECTED MACHINES ON THE NETWORK.

This wasn't just on one system.

There were hundreds of systems that were being impacted.

WE START LOOKING AT THE MALWARE

AND IMMEDIATELY REALIZED THAT THIS WAS MALWARE WE HAD SEEN MANY TIMES BEFORE.

THAT WE HAD HIGH CONFIDENCE ATTRIBUTION TO THE GRU,

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

WE'RE SEEING THEM SPREAD FROM SYSTEM TO SYSTEM,

TOUCH FILES, TAKE THOSE FILES OUT OF THE NETWORK,

STEALING DATA, MONITORING EVERYTHING.

You can't just shut down one machine

because they're everywhere.

So you have to shut everything down, um,

and spend several days rebuilding all the infrastructure.

We told, um, the DNC, "When do you want us to do this remediation?"

AT THE TIME, THE PRIMARIES WERE IN FULL SWING.

HILLARY CLINTON HAD NOT YET LOCKED DOWN HER NOMINATION,

so they said, "Let's plan for four or five weeks from now,

um, when the primaries are over and we're not under the gun."

Waiting a few weeks did not seem outrageous.

Of course over that period of time,

the Russians continued stealing documents,

and we're sort of helplessly watching them.

I WAS REALLY CONFUSED AND DISTURBED

BY WHAT WAS HAPPENING.

But initially, uh, the FBI didn't take it all that seriously,

and so, it wasn't rising to the level of,

of urgent, you know, five-alarm fire, uh, drill.

I WANT TO CONGRATULATE HILLARY CLINTON

ON MAKING HISTORY AS THE PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE

-FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

FINALLY, IN JUNE OF 2016,

WE KICKED THE RUSSIANS OUT OF THE DNC NETWORK.

This just in to CNN.

Russian hackers managed to infiltrate

the computer network at the Democratic National Committee.

The researchers were roaming around the network for about a year,

but were removed this weekend.

We've talked to DNC officials.

We've also talked to the outside firm that the DNC brought in

when they recognized that there was an issue here.

That firm called CrowdStrike.

There was a small blip on the, on the, on the news cycle

that day, of, "Oh, Russia's hacking the DNC,"

but national media moved on within hours,

and, uh, I thought that was gonna be the end of the story.

BUT THEN ON THE EVE OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION...

WIKILEAKS DUMPS THE EMAILS.

GOOD EVENING. THEIR PARTY'S CHAIRMAN OFF THE PROGRAM,

an apparent Russian email hack,

and now a revolt among Bernie Sanders supporters.

Welcome to day one of the Democratic National Convention.

THE INFORMATION STOLEN FROM THOSE SERVERS IN THE DNC,

SUDDENLY IT BEGINS TO SURFACE IN THIS WAY

that was presaged by the Sony attack,

and the Sands Corp attack.

EMAILS RELEASED BY WIKILEAKS,

PROVING THE DNC HAD FAVORED HILLARY CLINTON OVER SANDERS.

Comes out through WikiLeaks, which makes everything searchable so you'd be,

you know, there'll be a dump of 20,000 emails

and you just type in some names if you're a reporter,

and suddenly you've got a story.

THE THOUSANDS OF HACKED EMAILS

LEAKED TO WIKILEAKS

ROCKED THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE.

I'm so proud--

ONE OF THE THINGS THEY WERE DOING

was trying to stir up trouble between the Bernie delegates

and, and, and our forces.

BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTERS SAY THE EMAILS PROVED

THE PARTY FAVORED HILLARY CLINTON ALL ALONG.

It just validated everything we thought.

That this was completely rigged right from the beginning.

BY USING THAT STOLEN MATERIAL,

THE MEDIA INJECTED THE IDEA THAT THE DNC HAD RIGGED THE ENTIRE PROCESS

AGAINST BERNIE SANDERS. AND THERE'S A KERNEL OF TRUTH.

Clearly there are people in the DNC who didn't like Bernie Sanders.

But that doesn't mean the whole process is rigged.

And the media allowed them to go from the kernel of truth

to the conventional wisdom,

BECAUSE IT SOLD PAPERS,

AND IT GOT PEOPLE TO WATCH TV.

BUT THEY WERE AMPLIFYING THE MESSAGES THAT THE RUSSIANS WANTED AMPLIFIED.

IN THAT PILE OF INFORMATION

THAT'S COME FROM THE DNC,

there were some documents that were campaign finance documents

FROM THE CAMPAIGN THAT WOULD--

HAD BEEN UNLIKELY TO BE AT THE DNC.

SO, THE CAMPAIGN BEGAN TO LOOK AT

where might those have originated.

TURNED OUT, IN THE SPRING,

ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES WHO HAD ACCESS TO MY EMAIL ACCOUNT

HAD SEEN WHAT WAS A FAIRLY PROFESSIONAL

PHISHING OPERATION, LOOKING TO BE FROM GOOGLE.

SHE REPORTED THAT TO THE PEOPLE

IN THE TECH SECURITY SIDE OF THE CAMPAIGN.

HE SENT BACK AN EMAIL TO MY ASSISTANT SAYING THAT IT WAS REAL,

AND THAT I SHOULD CHANGE MY CREDENTIALS.

SHE THEN CLICKED ON THE LINK,

AND THAT'S HOW I WAS HACKED BY THE RUSSIANS.

But at that point, we weren't sure what the extent of the breach had been.

IN THE SUMMER AND FALL OF 2016,

THERE WERE MANY MEETINGS ABOUT THE RUSSIANS.

There was a lot of back and forth about what to do.

WE BEGAN TO GET INFORMATION

ABOUT CYBER ACTIVITY THAT WAS FOCUSED ON OUR VOTER REGISTRATION DATABASES.

And we realized that it was probably about disrupting

the integrity of that data.

THE RUSSIANS COULD GO INTO A VOTER REGISTRATION DATABASE

AND CHANGE THAT DATA,

SO THAT ON ELECTION DAY, WHEN VOTERS SHOW UP TO VOTE,

THEY ARE TURNED AWAY.

THERE IS CHAOS AT THE VOTING PLACE,

because the name doesn't match the identification,

and you could disrupt election day

to the degree that the American public

would doubt the legitimacy of the process,

and then potentially, the legitimacy of the outcome.

THAT'S WHAT OBAMA'S FOCUS WAS.

WHEN OBAMA SAW PUTIN IN SEPTEMBER,

HE BASICALLY THREATENED HIM

THAT IF THEY TRIED SOMETHING LIKE THAT,

THERE'D BE SEVERE CONSEQUENCES.

WHAT I THINK THEY UNDERAPPRECIATED

WAS HOW MUCH EFFECT THE RUSSIANS COULD HAVE FROM THE HACKING,

and from their massive disinformation operation.

Stamos: DURING THE ELECTION,

WE HAD A DEDICATED TEAM AT FACEBOOK

WHOSE JOB IT WAS TO LOOK FOR RUSSIAN ACTORS.

AND WE HAD FOUND GRU ACTIVITY. WE HAD FOUND DCLEAKS.

We had found them pushing disinformation,

but not really at scale.

And we didn't really understand

what was behind the vast majority of this fake news.

BUT RIGHT AFTER THE ELECTION,

WE TOOK ALL OF THE POLITICAL ADS THAT WERE RUN

IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE ELECTION.

AND THEN WE FIGURED OUT ALL THE ACCOUNTS THAT WERE POSSIBLY TIED TO IT.

So this is the people who ran the ad, but then also,

people who used the same computer as the person who ran an ad.

Or people who have used the same phone as the person who ran the ad.

And then for every single one of those accounts,

we looked for possible links to Russia.

We start pulling that thread, and then we eventually find this cluster

that we can all link together, and that was the Internet Research Agency.

THE INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC

IS BASICALLY A BUILDING IN ST. PETERSBURG

WITH A BUNCH OF TROLLS SITTING THERE

TRYING TO DRIVE DIVISIONS IN US SOCIETY.

IT'S EXISTED FOR YEARS AND YEARS AT THIS POINT.

And they've done propaganda work in Russia,

and Ukraine, and the like.

THE IRA SPECIFICALLY SENT PEOPLE TO THE UNITED STATES TO STUDY

THE POLITICAL SPHERE IN THE US

AND TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PRESSURE POINTS WERE.

SO IN 2016,

THEY WERE CREATING THESE FAKE AMERICAN PERSONAS,

and then running ads as political groups.

THE DEPTH OF THE CONTENT WAS SURPRISING.

Our assumption was that all of this content would be on one side, politically.

BUT WHAT THEY HAD DONE VERY EFFECTIVELY

WAS FIND A FRICTION POINT

AND THEN TRY TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES.

THE NUMBER-ONE TOPIC WAS ACTUALLY BLACK LIVES MATTER.

THEY CREATED A FAKE PERSONA TO PRETEND TO BE

A PRO-BLACK LIVES MATTER ACTIVIST.

AND TO PUSH NARRATIVES

THAT BOTH WOULD MAYBE RADICALIZE

PEOPLE WHO WERE SUPPORTIVE OF BLACK LIVES MATTER,

BUT ALSO LOOK RADICAL

TO MORE MODERATE PEOPLE

WHO COULD SAY, LIKE, "OH, LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE.

YEAH, THEY'RE, THEY'RE THEY'RE REALLY NUTS."

THEY EVEN, IN A COUPLE OF CASES, TRIED TO CREATE PROTESTS

WHERE A PRO-IMMIGRATION GROUP AND AN ANTI-IMMIGRATION GROUP

PROTEST ONE ANOTHER BY INVITING PEOPLE TO EVENTS THAT WERE AT THE SAME TIME.

Down with the racists! Down with the Nazis!

WE WERE SURPRISED THAT

PUTIN WOULD CARE SO MUCH

ABOUT WHO THE NEXT PRESIDENT WAS.

That he was so intent upon damaging me,

DAMAGING MY CAMPAIGN,

PREVENTING ME, IF HE COULD, FROM BECOMING PRESIDENT.

AND ALSO HOW ADEPT THEY WERE

IN SOWING DISINFORMATION, MISINFORMATION.

IT WAS UNLIKE ANYTHING WE'D EVER SEEN.

Stamos: NONE OF US KIND OF CONCEPTUALIZED THIS

AS THE KIND OF GROUPS WE SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR.

INTELLIGENCE TEAMS AT THE COMPANIES,

AND IN PLACES LIKE NSA AND THE US GOVERNMENT,

WERE FOCUSED ON VERY TRADITIONAL THREAT ACTORS.

GENERAL CLAPPER'S THIS OLD COLD WARRIOR.

GREW UP AS THE SON OF AN AIR FORCE OFFICER,

BECOMES AN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER.

And yet, the cyber conflicts

that are springing up during his time

as director of National Intelligence

ARE AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KIND OF THREAT

THAT HE'S JUST TRYING TO KEEP ON TOP OF.

AND TIME AND TIME AGAIN,

HE KEEPS GETTING CAUGHT BY SURPRISE.

It's not his fault.

We had never built an intelligence network

designed to pick this stuff up.

BUT THERE HE IS IN NORTH KOREA

WHILE THE NORTH KOREANS ARE INSIDE SONY.

AND THERE HE WAS, SITTING ON A SYSTEM

THAT FAILED TO RAISE A TIMELY ALARM

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

THAT THE RUSSIANS WERE INSIDE THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE.

Much less inside Facebook.

YOU KNOW, 20/20 HINDSIGHT, IT'S ALL, IT'S PERFECT VISION.

At the time, there was concern about publicizing this,

because by doing so, we'd simply amplify its importance.

And I think, as well, there was reluctance

to be seen by the last administration as

putting its hand on the scale

in favor of one candidate, or appearing to do that,

TO THE DISFAVOR OF THE OTHER.

The system, folks, is rigged.

It's a rigged, disgusting, dirty system.

It's a dirty system.

Then candidate Trump was alleging

that if he didn't win the election, it was rigged.

So, there was reluctance to,

you know, to play to that-- to play to that narrative.

BUT THE MAGNITUDE OF WHAT THE RUSSIANS WERE DOING

GREW BOTH IN EXPANSE AND CLARITY.

AND ON THE 7TH OF OCTOBER,

WE FINALLY CAME OUT WITH A PUBLIC STATEMENT,

which was a pretty forthcoming statement

about the Russian interference.

THERE'S MORE BREAKING NEWS WE'RE FOLLOWING TONIGHT.

THE UNITED STATES NOW OPENLY SAYING

THAT RUSSIA IS DIRECTLY BEHIND A SERIES OF CYBER ATTACKS

targeting the upcoming presidential election.

Well, unfortunately our message was completely emasculated.

A recording of Donald Trump made more than a decade ago...

Because that's the same day that the "Access Hollywood" audio tape came out.

You won't want young children to hear it.

The letter from the intelligence community comes out.

The "Access Hollywood" tape comes out

all in one day.

And WikiLeaks starts dumping my emails

an hour after the "Access Hollywood" tape comes out.

You can judge whether that's a coincidence.

Two thousand more emails have been posted online,

apparently from the hacked account

OF HILLARY CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN JOHN PODESTA.

Thousands of hacked emails from her campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Third installment of the hacked emails

from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta,

and so far, the messages have provided a look

into the inner workings of the Clinton camp.

Most of those ended up being of little import.

I'm a boring sort of guy.

ONE EMAIL REVEALS A DISAGREEMENT

BETWEEN TOP CLINTON AIDE HUMA ABEDIN

AND PODESTA OVER CLINTON'S PRESS STRATEGY.

A lot of this was gossip.

IN ANOTHER EMAIL, A LONGTIME CLINTON AIDE

REFERS TO CHELSEA CLINTON AS A, QUOTE, "SPOILED BRAT."

But people thought, well, if it's secret,

or if it's stolen,

it must be more sexy.

It's kind of shadowy.

"They didn't want you to know this much."

Like any good peek behind the curtains,

they show things the campaign obviously would rather keep under wraps.

The Clinton emails are fascinating

and hilarious reading in some ways.

So is it more like "Veep" or is it more like "West Wing"?

We were very frustrated.

THE FACT THAT THIS WAS A HOSTILE FOREIGN GOVERNMENT

INTERFERING IN THE ELECTION

was never really part of what the coverage was.

I would just add, you know, this should be of concern to everyone

that the Russians are trying to influence our election.

YOU KNOW, EVERYBODY WAS CLEARLY INFORMED

ABOUT MY EMAIL MISTAKES, BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW

there was an active campaign against us by the Russians.

THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN HAD PERSONNEL

ASSOCIATED WITH IT, WHO WERE ALSO BEING INVESTIGATED.

IF YOU LOOK AT TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN THE LAST MONTH,

he mentioned WikiLeaks over 160 times.

And they used the most perverse

TWISTING OF ANYTHING IN JOHN PODESTA'S EMAILS

to create controversy,

and, uh, sow distrust.

A Russian news outlet just totally misrepresented one of these emails,

and then Donald Trump read it.

She's now admitting that they could have

done something about Benghazi.

This just came out a little while ago.

There was, like, an email story every day,

and then Comey drops this hand grenade on us.

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE CAME IN THE FORM

OF A THREE-PARAGRAPH LETTER TO CONGRESS

FROM FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY,

WHO WROTE THAT AGENTS ON AN UNRELATED CASE

HAD LEARNED OF THE EXISTENCE OF EMAILS

THAT APPEAR TO BE PERTINENT TO THE CLINTON INVESTIGATION.

It's the wilderness of mirrors now,

in terms of investigation upon investigation.

We have to investigate Hillary Clinton,

and we have to investigate the investigation.

THIS IS OUT OF A RUSSIAN PLAYBOOK.

"When nothing is real, everything is possible,"

as one of Putin's critics said.

I don't think anybody knows it was Russia

that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia.

But I don't-- Maybe it was.

It also could be somebody sitting on their bed

that weighs 400 pounds, okay?

It begins to kind of

destroy any trust that people have.

Do you make the same commitment

that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?

I will look at it at the time.

And that really destroys the credibility of democracy.

That's what Putin wants.

WE LOOK AT OUR ELECTRONIC SUPERIMPOSED MAP OF THE NATION

HERE OUT BACK 30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA

IN NEW YORK, WHERE THE SUN WILL BE RISING,

UH, ON THE PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD JOHN TRUMP

OF QUEENS, NEW YORK.

I felt like, you know, my insides had fallen out.

It's like, I mean... devastating.

FOR MONTHS, THE NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT IS UNDER FIRE

FOR HOW HE'S DEALING WITH RUSSIA.

I know a lot about hacking.

And hacking is a very hard thing to prove.

So, it could be somebody else.

And I also know things that other people don't know,

and so, they cannot be sure of this situation.

And everybody is awaiting his first meeting ever with Vladimir Putin.

WHICH TOOK PLACE IN HAMBURG, GERMANY.

SO WE ALL FLY INTO HAMBURG.

TRUMP MEETS PUTIN, FIRST TIME.

HAS A LONG CONVERSATION WITH HIM.

THEN AT THE DINNER THAT NIGHT,

GOES OFF AND HAS A SEPARATE CONVERSATION WITH HIM

THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS WITNESSED.

President Putin and I have been discussing various things,

and I think it's going very well.

We've had some very, very good talks.

I head back to my hotel room,

and as I'm checking out, my cell phone rings.

It's the president.

"David, I just had the most remarkable conversation

"with Vladimir Putin.

"And he tells me,

"that if it had been the Russians

"who had meddled in the election,

"we never would have seen them.

"And therefore, it couldn't have been them,

"because they wouldn't have been this sloppy.

"You write about this stuff. You know about all of this.

He must be right."

The president was actually looking for affirmation.

He was looking for any way to deny

or cast doubt about the question of whether

the Russians were behind the hack.

AND AT THAT MOMENT YOU KNEW

THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

WAS NOT GOING TO ORGANIZE ITSELF

TO PUSH BACK ON THE RUSSIANS.

LET'S BE CLEAR FROM THE OUTSET.

This is unlike any cyber attack that we have seen before.

WE WANT TO START ON THIS WEDNESDAY MORNING

WITH THAT CRIPPLING CYBER ATTACK.

IT'S A NEW FORM OF RANSOMWARE...

It is hitting companies around the world

holding their computer systems hostage for money.

IN 2017, SHORTLY AFTER TRUMP CAME INTO OFFICE,

we saw a dramatic escalation

in the scale and the scope and the nature of cyber attacks.

THERE WAS A MASSIVE RANSOMWARE ATTACK CALLED "NOTPETYA"

THAT STARTED IN UKRAINE.

IT WAS JUNE 2017.

I'm deputy head of the presidential administration.

Took a few days' vacation to drop my, uh, kids to the summer camp.

And in the morning, I start receiving text messages from my team.

"WE THINK UKRAINE IS UNDER ATTACK."

"OUR INFRASTRUCTURE IS REGISTERING ATTACKS.

THE VIRUS IS DESTROYING COMPUTERS."

YOU KNOW, ATM MACHINES WERE NOT WORKING.

HOSPITALS REPORTED THEIR COMPUTERS BEING DOWN.

TV STATION, GROCERY STORES...

It was devastating. It was spreading like fire.

UKRAINE IS VLADIMIR PUTIN'S PETRI DISH.

IT'S WHERE HE EXPERIMENTS ON EVERY SINGLE TECHNIQUE

THAT HE ULTIMATELY ENDED UP USING IN THE UNITED STATES.

Breaking into emails, and making them public.

Sowing chaos with disinformation.

RUSSIA WAS CONSTANTLY TESTING DIFFERENT STRATEGIES,

and different approaches, in Ukraine.

ATTACKS ON THE ELECTRICAL GRID,

2015, 2016.

ATTACK ON THE TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE.

ODESSA AIRPORT, UKRAINIAN SUBWAY IN KIEV.

You don't see the regular war.

But war is taking place, and it's devastating.

WITH ITS NOTPETYA ATTACK,

WHAT THE RUSSIANS DIDN'T COUNT ON

IS THAT THE SPREADING ALGORITHMS THAT THEY PUT IN

WERE SO AGGRESSIVE THAT

it wouldn't just contain itself to the network of one company.

ANY FIRMS WITH ANY LINKS TO UKRAINE

ARE BEING CONTAMINATED BY THIS CONTAGIOUS VIRUS.

It would quickly jump out, and compromise contractors,

other networks that you may be connected with.

It escapes the box, and it begins to hit the corporations

and companies all around the world.

MAERSK SHIPPING WAS ONE.

FEDEX WAS ANOTHER.

They lost hundreds of millions of dollars of business

just from the loss of business operations

and the money they had to pay to remediate

the damage to their systems.

THERE WAS ONE OTHER ASPECT

TO THE NOTPETYA ATTACKS

THAT MADE THIS STORY REALLY COMPLICATED.

IT TURNED OUT THAT A COMPONENT OF THE ATTACKS

HAD RELIED ON CODE THAT HAD BEEN STOLEN

FROM INSIDE THE NSA.

IN THE SUMMER OF 2016,

A GROUP THAT CALLED ITSELF THESHADOWBROKERS

BEGAN POSTING THOUSANDS OF LINES OF THIS CODE

TO MAKE IT CLEAR TO THE NSA

THAT THEY HAD THE CROWN JEWELS.

BEFORE LONG, THE NORTH KOREANS

USED PARTS OF THE SHADOWBROKERS CODE

WHEN THEY ATTACKED WITH A WEAPON CALLED WANNACRY.

THIS SPECIFIC WORM THAT WAS LEAKED FROM THE NSA'S TOOLKIT

TARGETED MICROSOFT WINDOWS.

WINDOWS-BASED COMPUTERS IN THE US

AND ACROSS THE GLOBE COULD BE AT RISK.

I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER ON THAT MORNING,

SITTING IN THE MEETING OF MICROSOFT'S SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM.

And all of a sudden, people are seeing emails

pop up on their screen.

Reports from one customer after another. "What's going on?"

We're getting details of this massive international cyber attack today.

Hackers demanding money have paralyzed computers

IN AT LEAST 99 COUNTRIES.

YOU COULD ALMOST SEE THIS WORM

MOVING WITH THE TIME ZONES

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FROM EUROPE TO NORTH AMERICA.

IT WAS AS IF WE HAD LOST THE BLUEPRINTS

FOR AN AMERICAN MISSILE.

THE NORTH KOREANS AND THE RUSSIANS HAD GRABBED IT,

IMPROVED UPON IT, DESIGNED A PROTOTYPE,

and shot it back at American allies and friends.

It attacked 155 countries in one day.

In the history of humanity,

no weapon has ever been fired by a single country

in a way that hit so many other nations simultaneously.

THE VOLUME OF ATTACKS IS ESCALATING.

The sophistication of attacks is escalating.

And the debate about how to go deal with it

is only getting more and more confusing.

IT WAS MY FIRST DAY AS COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

IT WAS ABOUT 12 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

I'M ON MY WORK PHONE AND I TRY TO GET INTO MY EMAIL,

AND IT DOESN'T WORK.

And then I get onto my Surface Pro, and it doesn't work.

And so I start to call some other folks that I knew would be up

and I was told that we had been hacked.

WE HAD BEEN HIT BY A RANSOMWARE ATTACK.

WE WERE ADVISED BY--

uh, the administration but also from the federal government--

that we should not pay that ransom.

WE COULDN'T COMMUNICATE WITH THE PEOPLE THAT WE NORMALLY COMMUNICATE WITH.

PEOPLE COULDN'T COME IN AND FILL OUT FOR THEIR PERMITS.

REAL ESTATE DEALS COULD NOT BE DONE.

BILLS COULD NOT BE PAID.

PARKING TICKETS COULD NOT BE PAID.

Fines could not be paid.

We're talking about lots and lots of business in the city

that could not be done

because the systems were crippled

and pushed down to a halt.

I LOST, YOU KNOW, LITERALLY 12 YEARS OF FILES.

What was the cost to Baltimore, ultimately?

Yeah, it was upwards of $15 million,

is what we had to, to pay out and to rebuild, and build better systems.

And the original ransom was far less than that.

Far less than that, but, you know,

the mayor made a decision based on the advice of,

uh, public safety experts to not pay it.

CITES ACROSS AMERICA HAVE BEEN PARALYZED.

And some of them, including one small town in Florida,

decided it was cheaper to pay the ransom

than to try to go rebuild the databases.

Scott: CITES AND GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE COUNTRY,

BUSINESSES AROUND THE COUNTRY, NON-PROFITS AROUND THE COUNTRY,

SCHOOL SYSTEMS AROUND THE COUNTRY,

HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN NOW.

RIGHT? THIS IS THE NEW NORMAL.

SECRETARY NIELSEN, LOOKING AHEAD TO 2018,

WHAT IS DHS'S CURRENT ESTIMATION

of the threat to our elections,

from Russia, or any other hostile actor?

We think the threat remains high.

Uh, we think vigilance is important,

and we think there's a lot that we all need to do,

uh, at all levels of government,

uh, before we have the midterm elections.

WHEN IT COMES TO ELECTIONS,

the president never, uh, understandably,

never wanted the results of the elec--

of the election to be questioned.

IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT,

BUT THOSE WHO NEED TO BE FOCUSED ON THE ELECTIONS,

THEY KNOW WHAT THEY NEED TO DO.

The people who need to do the work that needs to be done,

have really dug in and, and recognized the, the threat.

WHEN HE WAS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT,

TRUMP HAD NOT REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT CYBER.

I DON'T THINK HE HAD EVEN HEARD ABOUT STUXNET.

HE CERTAINLY NEVER REGISTERED WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT.

He said to me at one point, "Oh. The cyber.

The cyber is very powerful."

BUT CANDIDATE TRUMP SAID HE WANTED TO PULL AMERICAN TROOPS

OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST, OUT OF SOUTH KOREA, OUT OF JAPAN.

SO HE SAW CYBER AS THIS MAGIC BULLET.

Today I'm convening this meeting to follow through

on my promise to secure crucial infrastructure.

And the networks that we've been talking so much about

over the last period of time of the federal government

against cyber threats.

BY THE TIME TRUMP BECAME PRESIDENT,

THE UNITED STATES HAD BUILT UP THIS MASSIVE, OFFENSIVE CYBER PROGRAM.

IT HAD GONE AFTER NORTH KOREA'S MISSILES.

NORTH KOREA HAS ONCE AGAIN ATTEMPTED TO LAUNCH

A BALLISTIC MISSILE, AND FAILED.

THEY MARK THE SECOND AND THIRD LAUNCH FAILURES.

ANOTHER FAILURE.

Using code to send those missiles spinning into the sea.

IT HAD GONE AFTER THE ISIS RECRUITMENT SYSTEM.

IT WAS CALLED "OPERATION GLOWING SYMPHONY."

AND THE IDEA BASICALLY WAS TO KNOCK ISIS OFFLINE.

BUT ONE OF THE KEY LESSONS OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

WAS THAT DESPITE DEVELOPING ALL THESE NEW CAPABILITIES,

IT TOOK FAR TOO LONG TO GET CYBER OPERATIONS APPROVED.

DURING THE TIME I WAS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,

not even the secretary of defense

could approve an offensive cyber operation.

That was only the president of the United States.

PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS TAKEN A VERY DIFFERENT APPROACH,

WHERE HE'S DELEGATED THE APPROVAL AUTHORITY

TO A LOT OF OFFENSIVE CYBER OPERATIONS,

NOT ONLY TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE,

BUT TO THE COMMANDER OF CYBER COMMAND.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OUR ADVERSARIES THINK RIGHT NOW?

If you do a cyber attack on America, what's gonna happen to 'em?

So, basically, uh, I would say right now, um,

they do not, um, think that much will happen to them.

-They don't fear us. -They don't fear us.

ONCE GENERAL NAKASONE TOOK OVER AT THE NSA

AND CYBER COMMAND,

HE PUT TOGETHER WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION

SOMETHING CALLED THE RUSSIA SMALL GROUP,

WHO WERE DETERMINED TO TAKE AN AGGRESSIVE STANCE AGAINST THE RUSSIANS.

FOR SEVERAL YEARS, THE UNITED STATES HAD WARNED

THAT RUSSIAN HACKERS WERE INSIDE THE US ELECTRIC GRID.

IN 2018,

THE NSA TOOK AMERICAN-MADE CODE

AND PUT IT INSIDE THE RUSSIAN ELECTRIC GRID.

AND THEY DESIGNED SOME OF IT

IN A WAY TO MAKE SURE THE RUSSIANS SAW THEM.

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO SAY,

"WE'RE NOT GONNA DO THIS IN A COVERT WAY.

"WE'RE GONNA MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND

what the price will be."

THERE WERE ALSO A SERIES OF MESSAGES

SENT TO RUSSIAN INFLUENCE OPERATIVES

THAT SAID, "WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

"IF YOU CONTINUE TO CONDUCT CYBER ATTACKS,

"AND IF YOU TRY TO TARGET THE ELECTION IN 2018,

there will be repercussions."

There were very targeted cyber operations

to make it clear that we knew who was doing what,

and we were gonna degrade their capability to succeed.

Healey: IN 2018, IN THE LEAD-UP TO ELECTION DAY,

CYBER COMMAND TAKES DOWN THE RUSSIAN INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY.

They got in there, and really took apart their home network.

Really disabled it,

so that they wouldn't be able

to conduct their social media campaign.

Hultquist: THIS WAS A VERY FORWARD-LEANING OPERATION.

IT LOOKED TO BE PRETTY SUCCESSFUL.

RUSSIAN ACTORS WERE SOMEWHAT QUIET DURING THAT PERIOD.

The question is, how long will that last?

Can we defend forward against every, you know, potential actor?

GOOD MORNING, SANDRA AND ED.

AND NOW IT IS UP TO THE IOWA VOTERS.

IOWANS IN MORE THAN 1,600 PRECINCTS ARE GATHERING

TO BACK THE PERSON THEY WANT TO WIN THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION.

MY PURPOSE HERE IS VERY SIMPLE.

IT'S TO COME BEFORE YOU ONE MORE TIME

and ask you to caucus for me.

WE ARE STILL AWAITING THE FIRST OFFICIAL RESULTS

GIVEN TO US BY THE PARTY.

Obviously, things are going a bit slow for them.

Sixteen hours since the Iowa caucuses began.

We're still waiting for the results.

The app didn't work. No one knew if it would.

This is, so far, not so good.

Iowa was exactly my worst fear.

The biggest concern was that voters would not be able to trust the system.

What about the confidence in the vote?

Especially with, against the backdrop

of the Russian interference in 2016.

What Iowa is demonstrating to adversaries of the United States is

all they have to do is create that appearance.

And they probably don't even have to create their own disinformation.

American partisans will do it for them.

News anchor: THE PRESIDENT'S SON WAS SAYING IT'S RIGGED.

The president's campaign manager.

The Biden campaign is out there

openly saying they don't trust

what the results will be.

They've created what's called a perception hack.

Our mind immediately goes to the question,

"Are the Russians messing with our election?"

It doesn't matter whether they are or they aren't.

This is one of the confusing aspects of election security.

It's not just about trying to hack into computers.

There's another aspect of election interference

that's about trying to hack into your brain.

They're ultimately trying to get the American people

to lose confidence in the system.

That the system is beyond repair.

That the system is broken, and their vote doesn't matter.

US officials have now told, uh, Senator Bernie Sanders that Russia

is trying to help his presidential campaign.

How do you think it came out now,

if you had the briefing a month ago?

Well, I'll let you guess about one day before the, uh,

Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?

'Cause the "Washington Post"? Good friends.

Joe, what do you say to the Russians?

I'm comin'.

They're continuing to meddle.

They're involved in this race, and in my primary.

They're involved going after me on Facebook.

They've already been taken down.

Because Putin knows me and I know him,

and he doesn't want me to be president.

The Russians want everyone in this country to mistrust everything.

Whether or not the Russians are involved,

these next few months are gonna be tense.

WE DO HAVE BREAKING NEWS.

The coronavirus outbreak is now a global pandemic.

No country is untouched.

No part of our everyday lives is untouched.

We will see more cases,

and things will get worse.

THE CORONAVIRUS

HAS REORDERED THE COMPETITION FOR WORLD POWER.

And so, it's not surprising

that it's reordered cyber power, as well.

BAD INFORMATION IS NOW SPREADING ONLINE

FASTER THAN THE CORONAVIRUS ITSELF.

CYBER EXPERTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS

WARM THIS SO-CALLED INFO-DEMIC IS DANGEROUS,

AND NEEDS TO BE CONTAINED.

IN THE MIDST OF COVID-19,

DISINFORMATION GETS SUPER CAFFEINATED.

And we see it play out

in Russia's favorite petri dish once again,

IN UKRAINE.

AS THE CORONAVIRUS BEGAN SPREADING ACROSS THE WORLD,

UKRAINE QUICKLY MOVED TO START BRINGING

SOME OF ITS CITIZENS BACK FROM WUHAN,

TO SERVE OUT 14 DAYS OF SELF-ISOLATION

IN THIS TINY LITTLE TOWN IN CENTRAL UKRAINE.

These people were not infected with the virus.

BUT PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA BEGAN SPREADING THIS MISINFORMATION

THAT THESE UKRAINIANS THAT ARE COMING HOME FROM WUHAN ARE INFECTED.

PEOPLE STARTED USING VIBER,

AND INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK TO WARN EACH OTHER.

SOME OF THE MESSAGES WENT EVEN FURTHER IN SAYING

WE NEED TO GO OUT INTO THE STREETS AND PROTEST.

WE NEED TO TURN THESE BUSES OF PEOPLE AROUND TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.

Or else we're going to wake up in the morning, and we'll all be dead.

-THIS DISINFORMATION ACTUALLY FUELED

A REAL-LIFE PROTEST IN THE STREETS.

POLICE CAME OUT IN RESPONSE.

CLASHES ENSUED.

WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS, IN UKRAINE ESPECIALLY,

THE ENTITY THAT IS ALWAYS POINTED AT FIRST IS RUSSIA.

There are signs that Russia could be involved.

BUT THERE ARE REAL PEOPLE IN THESE GROUPS.

REAL PEOPLE WHO I INTERVIEWED,

WHO SAID, "I ALSO SHARED MESSAGES IN THIS GROUP

"TO GO OUT AND PROTEST,

to protect myself, to protect my family."

And it just spiraled out of control very, very, very quickly.

Within hours.

THERE'S A LESSON IN WHAT HAPPENED IN UKRAINE.

THE RUSSIANS ARE ALREADY CHANGING THE PLAYBOOK.

THEY'RE TARGETING PEOPLE

who might be susceptible to the message,

the conspiracy.

And repeat it themselves.

AND IT'S NOT JUST THE RUSSIANS.

The pandemic now becoming even more than a public health crisis.

IT IS TURNING INTO A MAJOR DIPLOMATIC CLASH

AS THE BLAME GAME UNFOLDS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE VIRUS.

I would like to begin

by announcing some important developments

in our war against the Chinese virus.

The Chinese in 2020

have used disinformation brilliantly

as people have been casting blame for COVID-19.

THERE WAS A STORY SPREAD

THAT THE VIRUS DIDN'T BEGIN IN A WET MARKET IN WUHAN.

BUT INSTEAD THAT IT BEGAN WITH A US ARMY EXERCISE IN CHINA.

There's absolutely no evidence for this at all.

But the Chinese saw

how well the Russians were able to plant this information,

AND WATCH IT TAKE OFF NATURALLY

AMONG CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND OTHERS.

Stamos: I THINK WE'VE BEEN HIGHLY DISTRACTED AS A COUNTRY

BY FOCUSING JUST ON RUSSIA SINCE 2016.

When the real long-term strategic challenge for us

is going to be China globally.

RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY IS TO TAKE OTHERS DOWN,

AND CAUSE DISRUPTION IN THE SYSTEM.

China has very different priorities.

They're trying to work within the system and take over the system,

so they're not interested in chaos. It's all about theft.

And primarily theft of intellectual property

that can be used to further build up the Chinese economy.

THERE WAS ONE TIME WE WERE BROUGHT INTO A COMPANY

THAT WAS IN THE SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS BUSINESS.

They had discovered a hack,

and, uh, they asked us to analyze it,

and ultimately help protect them.

WE SAW THAT THE EMAIL ADDRESS

THAT WAS BEING USED TO REGISTER A BUNCH OF THIS INFRASTRUCTURE

WAS BEING REUSED CONTINUOUSLY.

IT WAS A GMAIL ADDRESS.

AND WE TRACKED IT TO AN INDIVIDUAL IN CHINA.

THEY HAD A SOCIAL PERSONA,

and had a Picasa album,

which at the time was a photo album that was owned by Google.

IT WAS OPEN, AND HE HAD A BUNCH OF PICTURES OF HIS GIRLFRIEND,

AND HIS FAMILY, AND HIMSELF.

AND HE HAD PICTURES OF HIS DORM ROOM.

AND IN THE CORNER OF THE DORM ROOM WE SAW A HAT.

WE STARTED DOING IMAGERY ANALYSIS,

AND WE NOTICED THAT THE HAT WAS PLA OFFICER'S HAT.

WE THOUGHT, "THIS MIGHT BE INTERESTING."

WE MIGHT HAVE SOMEONE FROM THE CHINESE MILITARY

on our hands here that may be responsible for these attacks.

WE FOUND OTHER PICTURES THAT HE HAD POSTED ONLINE

THAT WERE LABELED "OFFICE."

THERE WAS A PICTURE OF THIS BIG WHITE BUILDING BEHIND HIM

THAT HAD HUGE ANTENNAE DISHES,

HAD REFLECTIVE COATING ON THE WINDOWS,

THAT WOULD PREVENT SIGNAL INTERCEPTION.

WE STARTED DOING SATELLITE IMAGERY ANALYSIS

TO TRY TO LOCATE THIS BUILDING.

WE TRACKED IT DOWN TO SHANGHAI.

TO A PARTICULAR AREA OF SHANGHAI.

WE STARTED LOOKING AT THE IMAGERY. WE SAID, "WAIT A SECOND.

THERE'S MILITARY GUARD GATES ALL OVER THIS BUILDING."

WE GOT THE ADDRESS OF THAT BUILDING,

AND WE STARTED LOOKING INTO CHINESE GOVERNMENT MATERIALS.

AND SURE ENOUGH, WE DISCOVERED THERE WAS THE HEADQUARTERS

OF THE 12TH BUREAU OF THE THIRD DEPARTMENT

OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY,

GIVING US PRETTY HIGH-LEVEL CONFIDENCE

THAT THIS HACK HAD COME FROM THE CHINESE MILITARY.

THIS IS ACTUALLY PART OF A PLAN.

They lay it out in their, their five-year plans

for the technology they want to acquire.

If they can generate it indigenously, great.

If they can't,

because they want to get it fast, they'll steal it.

China alone is responsible for hacks

to almost 700 public and private targets in the US

in the last five years.

ONE OF THE REASONS WHY

CHINA'S MOST SOPHISTICATED AIRPLANE

LOOKS LIKE THE F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER

is because they stole some of the technology

from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

When you look at pictures of it, you go, "Man, that looks familiar."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg,

from the Chinese side.

GOOGLE SAYS IT AND AT LEAST 20 OTHER COMPANIES

WERE VICTIMS OF A TARGETED CYBER ATTACK ORIGINATING IN CHINA.

A very sophisticated cyber attack on the health insurer Anthem.

THIS INTRUSION IS ONCE AGAIN THE WORK OF STATE-SPONSORED

ESPIONAGE GROUPS BASED IN CHINA.

AND THEN THE CHINESE ESCALATED.

THEY SPENT A YEAR INSIDE THE OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT,

the most boring bureaucracy in America.

THEY STOLE 22 MILLION FILES

OF HIGHLY CLASSIFIED SECURITY CLEARANCE APPLICATIONS.

That is an intelligence nightmare.

The Chinese now have all sorts of detailed information

about your family members,

foreign friends that you may have,

that could be used to actually recruit assets

for the Chinese government sometime in the future.

BY 2020,

THEY WERE BACK AT IT IN A MUCH MORE SOPHISTICATED WAY.

News anchor: THE FBI AND FEDERAL CYBER SECURITY AGENTS

are warning that hackers linked to the Chinese government

are trying to steal research on coronavirus vaccines and therapies.

THE WAY JET FIGHTER DESIGNS MIGHT HAVE BEEN

A DECADE AGO,

coronavirus has become the holy grail.

BECAUSE THE COUNTRY THAT WINS THE RACE

FOR THE VACCINE AND THE TREATMENT OF COVID-19

WILL BECOME A NEW KIND OF POWER,

ABLE TO SPREAD THAT VACCINE AROUND THE WORLD.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly,

as China has spread its economic tentacles through the world,

IT HAS RECOGNIZED THAT THE NETWORKS

IT IS SELLING TO EVERYBODY ELSE

ACROSS FIBER OPTIC CABLE AND 5G NETWORKS

GIVES THEM AN ELEMENT OF CONTROL

that a few years ago they could scarcely have even imagined.

YOU COULD SEE A FUTURE WHERE

EVERY DEVICE THAT YOU CAN IMAGINE IS ON THE INTERNET,

and is connected to the 5G cellular network.

Warner: 5G IS LIKE MOVING FROM RADIO TO TELEVISION

IN TERMS OF HOW WE USE OUR TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM,

AND IF WE'RE THINKING ABOUT, YOU KNOW, DRIVERLESS CARS,

OR OUR, OUR REFRIGERATOR THAT'S CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET,

AND ALL OF THE POSSIBILITIES

THAT COME WITH A TOTALLY INTERCONNECTED WORLD,

that rides on a 5G network.

So who controls that network

is extraordinarily important, and I think what we're waking up to

IS WE'RE CONFRONTING CHINA

THAT HAS A NATIONAL CHAMPION IN ITS COMPANY HUAWEI

THAT IS A LONG-TERM SECURITY THREAT.

Hurd: THIS COMPANY HUAWEI IS THE LARGEST PROVIDER OF 5G EQUIPMENT.

THEY'RE THE ONES BUILDING THE ANTENNAS THAT YOU NEED.

THEY'RE THE ONES THAT ARE BUILDING THE SYSTEMS THAT MOVES THE DATA.

THE UNITED STATES' POSITION ON THIS IS THAT

ANY INFORMATION THAT IS ABLE TO TRANSMIT

across Huawei technology

will ultimately be accessible by the Chinese government.

AND WHAT IS THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT

GOING TO DO WITH THAT INFORMATION

IS THE ULTIMATE QUESTION.

Thank you.

So we begin, Oklahoma. We begin.

Thank you, Oklahoma.

And thank you to Vice President Mike Pence.

We begin. We begin our campaign.

Man singing:

That's nice.

Thank you.

I HAVE SPENT THE LAST YEAR

GAMING OUT THE 2020 ELECTION.

Trying to get ahead of it. Really trying to think through

what, what's next. What's next, what's next.

MY NIGHTMARE SCENARIO IS RANSOMWARE.

THAT A RANSOMWARE ACTOR WOULD GAIN ACCESS TO A VOTER REGISTRATION DATABASE,

lock it up, and say, "Hey, election official.

"I've locked this up.

I'm not giving it back to you unless you give me $3 million."

THIS IS WHAT GETS ME UP EVERY MORNING.

It's the last thing I think about at night.

I wake up in the middle of the night

and think about it. When I'm walking the dog.

Up here, oh, it's a hellscape right now.

WHEN YOU HAVE A GOVERNMENT LED BY SOMEONE

WHO APPEARS TO BE BEHOLDEN

TO VLADIMIR PUTIN,

you don't have much confidence

that your own government is going to protect

the integrity of our election.

I'M SOMEBODY WHO THINKS THAT PUTIN SHOULD HAVE PAID A PRICE.

I DON'T KNOW IF WE'RE GONNA FIND OUT

EXACTLY WHAT THE THREAT IS

UNTIL, ONCE AGAIN, IT'S TOO LATE.

IN 2020, THE RUSSIANS ARE BACK,

BUT SO ARE THE CHINESE.

AND THE IRANIANS.

AND THE NORTH KOREANS.

ALL OF THESE COUNTRIES ARE JUST EXPERIMENTING

WITH THINGS THAT THEY LEARNED FROM WATCHING THE RUSSIANS.

They realize that they can do damage to us,

by merely opening up the chasms that already exist

in American society.

IF IT WERE GOING TO BE A NATION-STATE ACTOR

WHO'S GONNA DISRUPT THE ELECTIONS IN 2020,

I THINK MOSTLY LIKELY IT WOULD BE THE NORTH KOREANS

OR THE IRANIANS.

IF WE WERE GOING TO LOOK FOR AN IRANIAN ATTACK, FOR EXAMPLE,

ALL THEY WOULD HAVE TO DO IS DESTROY ONE THING

IN ONE STATE OR ONE COUNTY,

in conjunction with an information operation that would say,

"We are the holy warriors of Iran,

and we successfully locked up this server."

The press would cover it. There would be all these questions,

and America would be wrapped in knots.

At the same time, you know, certain political leaders

might also take advantage of that.

One final question. Our intelligence agencies have said

that your country is among the countries

that are attempting to interfere in our election.

We don't interfere in the internal affairs of another country,

but there is a cyber war going on.

The United States started that cyber war.

You remember Stuxnet.

Any war that the United States starts,

it won't be able to finish.