In a televised interview on Fox Business, cyber‑security specialist Robert Siciliano discusses a series of high‑profile cyber incidents that were dominating the news in June 2011. He explains the FAA’s critical alert that crippled the national air‑traffic network, the massive Citigroup credit‑card breach affecting 200,000 customers, and the broader ecosystem of criminal hackers who operate worldwide for profit and, in some cases, to fund terrorist activities. Siciliano emphasizes that while white‑hat security professionals and “good‑guy” hackers work around the clock to protect systems, absolute security does not exist; eventually a vulnerability will be exploited. The conversation then shifts to the Anthony Weiner scandal, where Siciliano argues that Weiner’s explicit photos were likely obtained through a technical flaw that has since been patched, and that forensic analysis could trace the source. He also addresses the capacity of social‑media platforms to retain and back up user data, noting that digital trails are difficult to erase. Throughout, he warns that cyber‑attacks can have cascading effects on transportation, finance, and even national security, urging individuals and organizations to adopt robust backup and forensic readiness practices.
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FAA just issued a critical alert. The entire network went down.
Transportation system is crashing and they just hit the entire financial sector. Well, the hack attack is on. Is Judgment Day just a click away? Why the next world war could start on the World Wide Web. Turns out Weiner wasn't hacked, but there's a good chance you'll get whacked. 200,000 Citigroup credit cards falling victim to a major hack attack. City customers just The latest targets. My next guest has been arguing for a long time, just the beginning. Get ready for more. Cyber expert Robert Siciliano. We always get great mail on this gentleman when he comes. It's good practical advice. Um, Robert, good to have you back.
Thank you, Neil.
Um, you know, this is rampant, Robert. I mean, everyone I know— it's happened to me a couple of times. Why is it happening? How is it happening?
Well, it's happening because you have criminal hackers from all over the world that are working, you know, around the clock to get paid by hacking our data, cashing it in, using our credit card information, buying products and services. You know, they're funding terrorist activity. They're living their lives based on the flaws in our system of commerce.
But what are they doing or getting access to that we're helping? I mean, what can we do to stop that?
Well, we have, you know, security professionals, white hat hackers, good guys that are working, are around the clock themselves to prevent the bad guys from getting in. But at the same time, you have organized criminals that are also working to get in, and every so often they slip in through. You know, there's no such thing as 100% security. And that being said, you know, at some given point in time, someone's going to answer the door, they're going to open it, and the worm's going to slither through.
You know, Robert, if you don't mind my going back to my more puritan interest on this Congressman Weiner thing, do you think he finally fessed up? Because he knew that that electronic record was there. And whether the pictures were going to be retrieved or not, the messages inescapably were on that server and they weren't leaving that server.
So in our previous conversation, uh, I, uh, said that, uh, I thought he was hacked, which there entirely was an opportunity for him to be hacked because there was a flaw in the system, right, that has since been discontinued and shut down. At this point, uh, there's no question about it that, you know, with certain forensics that they could trace back, uh, the, the of where that photograph came from. And more than likely, uh, investigators would have actually pinpointed that, and, uh, Wienergate would have been exposed for whatever else they never can get.
This— I mean, I'm thinking like a site like Twitter or Facebook, they must get billions of messages and emails, right? I mean, their servers can't support all of that ad nauseam, can they? Or can they?
They can. They have systems in place to document everything. They have to, uh, if something like this was to happen, you know, violence, theft, fraud, They need to have some type of a paper trail of sorts, you know, digital trail at least. And it's all there, you know. And they back up their backup, and it's all somewhere. So it's very hard to run and hide today, because the information is there. It's digital. It's repeatable. It's backed up. It's there. There's no running and hiding today.
I'm wondering the fact that there aren't a lot more people condemning the congressman, let's say in Washington, that there aren't more who've done the exact same thing.
Well, certainly, you know, you have all these politicians drunk with power, people in a position of power, they, you know, say and do things inappropriately, and, you know, sometimes they sweep it under the rug, sometimes they don't, but in the end, unfortunately, you know, for them, the truth definitely comes out, fortunately for us.
Well, a lot of things come out. All right, Robert Siciliano, thank you very much. Thank you. Very good seeing you.
