Robert Siciliano, a cyber-threat expert, discusses simultaneous outages at the NYSE, United Airlines, and the Wall Street Journal. He warns that a prolonged electrical-grid outage could cascade into fuel shortages and food scarcity, and criticizes the federal government's weak information-security practices, citing the Office of Personnel Management breach.
Chapters
The fact that both of them failed within an hour of each other and failed totally could just be a coincidence, or it could be someone trying to send us a signal.
That's former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke weighing in on the computer problems that shut down the New York Stock Exchange and United Airlines yesterday. Now, both are up and running today, and both saying that the incidents were not related, and there's no indication They were cyber attacks. A short time ago, I spoke to Robert Siciliano about all of this. He's a cyber threat expert as well as a consultant to Hotspot Shield. I know that, uh, at this point people are saying that it was just a coincidence, and, uh, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said no signs of malicious activity. But do you think, I mean, from what you know, that it is just coincidental that 3 major entities were all simultaneously impacted?
Let's just hope that it's a coincidence, because the day that, uh, the stock exchange goes down, an airline is grounded, and, uh, the Wall Street Journal is attacked, uh, would be a really scary and sad day for the public and for information security.
Well, you live in this world much more than the rest of us, so when you saw the events of yesterday play out, was part of you saying You know, I've been saying there are so many more vulnerabilities than maybe the American public, let alone the government, wants to acknowledge. Is this part of our new reality, Robert?
This certainly is our new reality. You know, technology has overtaken our lives. You know, it's part of our critical infrastructures, it's part of our finances. And when something that we don't fully understand scares us like this, due to the fact that there's been so many breaches of data, consumers want to know that they're going to be safe.
You know, it's funny, Robert, I was speaking to a military analyst earlier this week and we were talking about the exit interview, if you will, that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was doing. He was talking about the future of warfare. And my guest was saying, you know, clearly the US is still, regardless of the trouble spots in the world, we clearly have the advantage militarily in every basic, uh, discipline except for cyber warfare. And he said in that respect, there's a level playing field out there, and you're not even talking with nation-states right now. Where are our greatest vulnerabilities, and who are some of the worst offenders?
The federal government is certainly, um, lax in their, uh, information security technology. Organizations like NSA, certainly they're up to speed, but when you have the, uh, Office of Personnel Management hacked the way they have That's unfortunate. My information was a part of that data breach. I received letters from the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, which I am a staff officer in, that my information had been breached. And that in and of itself should not have happened. So the feds really need to get up to speed. The feds and then consumers themselves need to get up to speed as well. Updating your operating systems, Keeping your antivirus updated, making sure you have a virtual private network, a VPN, for any wireless communications. These are all things that are fundamental to information security, both the consumers and of course for the feds as well.
Obviously, Robert, um, there was inconveniences yesterday, 5,000 flights grounded, uh, information as it relates to Wall Street Journal and certainly what we saw with the markets, but nonetheless it was an inconvenience. Give me your nightmare scenario and what folks in your world have, you know, in effect, a game played here as to where the— not only the biggest vulnerabilities are, but, but how it could really cripple the US.
The moment that the electrical grid goes down for any extended period of time, my sense is that we'd devolve into some chaos in the not-too-distant future, meaning that Most people aren't prepared to deal with no electricity, which means that there'd be no gasoline cuz pumps couldn't pump. There'd be no deliveries to the supermarkets, therefore there'd be no food. I think the shelves would clear out pretty quickly, similar to how when there's a major storm coming. And last time I looked, less than 5% of the entire population is sustainable for any longer than a week. As far as their food supply goes. So without food, without clean running water, without heat, without electricity, uh, chaos would ensue pretty quickly. Critical infrastructure is going down for any length of time is where we would fail.
Um, certainly a scenario nobody wants to see. Robert, though, I appreciate a few minutes. Again, Robert Siciliano, I appreciate the time. Thank you.
Thank you.
And as always, we want to get you at home involved in our conversation. All you have to do is head over to Facebook and Twitter and sound off on tonight's online question: Are you concerned about a cyberattack hitting America?
