The Wilson Center best supporter on the planet, and were giving him a name tag, but welcome michael and welcome everyone else. Im jane harman, president and ceo of the Wilson Center. It is the best job on the planet because i get to talk to geniuses every single day. One of them whos not in my script but im going to call her out, shes going to hide somewhere, is maggie king. Some of you may not know her but she runs our science, technology, and Innovation Program and is responsible for the schools we have on fridays to teach capitol hill staff about cyber and artificial intelligence. And todays genius, that would be ben buchanan, is our go to guy when we teach some of those schools and has been trying to teach me for a while. I think ive been the repeater of all time at some of those schools. Im kind of getting get but i have an analog brain and i think him for his patients. He is a global fellow and he will discuss his latest book right now called the hacker and the state. Le spoiler alert, hackers have changed the world. How . Ben says quote Cyber Operations are now indelibly part of International Relations and the gap between the United Statesf and other countries has narrowed considerably. Get that folks . Narrowed considerably. From north koreas efforts to hacks for cash, 1 million worth, against the bank of bangladesh to russias maligned activity from disinformation to electric blackouts in ukraine, there is plenty to talk about. Understanding how cyber tools are used and abused is bens specialty. Also taking care of analog brain grandmas. I think i will give him credit for that. He was a marshall scholar who seek his phd from Kings College in london and he knows everything. Even more important though i reset this. Ben is beloved. As a former member of congress, that would be me, who tried to ensure our Technical Intelligence collection tools were not cumbersome, where legal and were regularly reviewed by experts to prevent t abuses, i really salute ben for the kind of teaching he is doing to all these hill staffers and come knowing enough about the subject and not knowing each other. And the contribution he has made is just colossal. So my theory as i i just handes politicians are analog but our problems are digital, and the Wilson Center is trying to change that. So here to moderate the conversation with ben, ben the genius, is Courtney Kube e of nbc news. Courtney is a correspondent covering National Security in the military and has spent a lot of time reporting onng the intelligence and digital issues when discussingit today especiay election interference. Did you know there is election interference . It really means a lot to us that courtney would cover into this and take a little time away from the endlessss conversation about our ongoing primary election. Courtney, thank you so much, and over a to you. Enjoy, everybody. Thank thank you very much. Weve ben the genius and courtney they merely adequate. Hopefully well all learn a little bit but i do have one little thing, and i got an early cup of this on one of the few people in the reverse ad selection of being able to read the hacker and the state. Its fascinating read and were lucky to have ben who tells more us more about it. Sincel most people in room havent had a chance to read it can you give us a basic overview of what is isrv the thesis of e book . Too often we talk about hacking between nations as this hypothetical like its nuclear war, something thats often the bolt from a blue, i cyber pearl harbor or cyber 9 11. The thesis isnd that the wrong y to look at it. Pens every single day. Its not an extraordinary activity but a daily one and part of the way in which nations compete in the modern era of statecraft and project power. What i wanted to do was take the discussion above a very academic hypothetical theoretical and make it very real. These are the stories of how nations hack one another and why nations have one another and this is what it means. Every chapter in the book has a different way in which nations tap fiber cables to hacking banks to steal cash to blackout symbiont. I want to tell the story of what happens every day. The sickly you are looking at , Many Americans around the world see Cyber Attacks and Cyber Espionage is a potential for mass casualties and chaos like you are looking at the space in between like the gray matter what happens in hacking every single day. We will get into some of the specifics in the cases that you detail in the book at how would you characterize a cyber attack on the nation, it nations to nation how does a generally look today . Make your waiting for a cyber attack of planes crashing in cities burning you missed the activities about the most and most activities that actually happen. What we do see between nations is persistent and pervasive espionage the United States china russia and Cyber Capabilities as tools of espionage. We in some circumstances the attacks into blackouts caused by Russian Hackers in ukraine. We also see what i called destabilization operations elections being the primary example of those of the nation saying we are going to use hacking tools to interfere in an adversarys election. These are the categories of activities of destabilization almost everything waste since he fits in one of those buckets and Little Wonder that involves casualties that its important. He would say todays Cyber Attacks are more pervasive but less destructive than in the past . Sort of insidious harm that happens. Its closer to Climate Change than a forest fire. Explain in the book one of the major reasons nations hack one another is this endless struggle to dominate for domination over the countries especially the domination over the world. Do you still believe thats true . Yes. And has hacking become harder to prevent that was in the past . Not only is it harder to prevent that nations are getting more aggressive. This is essentially a study of whats happened in the last 20 or so years in the hacking business between nations and what we see is nations are Getting Better and less inhibited. If you look at russia economical case if you go back 10 or 15 years russia was a very stealthy actor in cyberspace. They were in contrast to the chinese smash and grab workers russia was methodical and slow and hide behind the raider. Were seen since then is a russia that got more aggressive is much more capable. Imagine the two blackouts in ukraine and certainly everyone here knows about the election interference of 2016 but theres the attack in 2017 probably the most destructive cyber attack and history did 10 million in damage around the world and thats the lowest estimate also perpetrated by russia. Not only are hackers Getting Better but they are getting more aggressive you. You mentioned ukraine twice at russia attacked ukraine power grid in 2016. Would you believe russias goal was in that . Was it messaging for destructive measures in ukraine or messaging to the world that had the capability . If it was destructive measures they certainly fell short of their goal. The firstever publicly known blackout caused by a cyber attack it appears these attackers did less damage and they held Something Back which leaves the question what were they trying to do if it wasnt an allout attack. What were they trying to do . The first is that some kind of tester finding the capability and the second is this is some kind of the signal of russias thing to ukraine or to the world we have had this capability. The thing that you all have long feared causing a blackout was a cyber attack and we can do that was particularly remarkable especially the 2016 blackout is the tool the russians deployed to carry out the attack was automated and more scalable and it seems could work against American Power system as well. That may be a suggestion not just ukrainians but americans and a capability in our arsenal and we are afraid to use it. Specifically in 2016 good that allow the or other allies the ability to put in some sort of a preventative measure for something that couldnt happen in the u. S. . It certainly tip the russians hands and showed how the russians would would carry this out and develop a different capability that certainly possible and could america improve its defense is . One hopes when you see a hypothetical here blackouts become real. Certainly elections are something that gets a lot of attention in the United States and its not all doom and gloom. You are making progress on the electorate security front. Another thing that gets a lot of attention is bank attacks or anything that involves a large financial vocation. Congressman harman mentioned banking. There are things ive never heard about. Spanning its remarkable ambition that the North Koreans have. This is a country that probably is the most isolated sanctioned country on earth and one of the ways that they get hard currency for the regime is to hack other sites. Their most famous hack is the hack against the bank of bangladesh and the central bank in the country where they aspire to steal upwards of a billion dollars. The accounts these interactive Banking System and the initiate transfers from the new york fed that the North Koreans control. Whats funny about this case is they made some type of transfer so some of the transfers were blocked and they only got 81 million instead of the almost 1 billion. It mice be one of the most expensive typos in history that the austrians made. Whats significant is that showed the efficient of north korea and stops there. Its a much broader campaign. They hack cryptocurrencies with a great deal of success and they have also had the operation against the bank of india hacking atms all over the world and withdrew the money and decentralized russia so it characteristic of north korean they continue to evolve. When you say north korean operation this is something that the state run sanction funded . Carried out a hackers directed by the North Koreans. This is a priority for the regime to raise hard currency and hack is one way they do it. Another thing that surprised me was he wrote the north korea operators that opens up the next question if they are risk tolerance and do they ever seem that doesnt care about International Norms and laws and whatnot what you think they could do next in the hacking world . Yes is only question i dont want to say that this is real but one hypothetical thing that has been raised if north korea becomes the leading transactional interference of the integrity of the Financial System with a become the leading manipulating transaction interfering with the integrity of the system in order to do damage and any banker would tell you that these transaction records are at the core of our modern Financial System and one worry at this point hypothetical worry is that north korea might come back to bank hacking not for the purpose of funding the machine bridging the hunchback against the left. We are talking hacking and you talk about cyberapps via nagy. Theres one specific case and again i found fascinating so illustrative of the cat and mouse theme that exists in in cyberespionage and its called a byzantine candor. Its a Chinese Group a codename for a chinese hacking group. It was the essentially a spare fishing campaign in early 2000. Can you tell about how it started and how it evolved at the time . The byzantine candor being the codenamed for this. I dont name these things than what was striking about the byzantine candor with their reach. They were striking many targets across the United States. They were spearfishing to get access to the computers of american officials and polling information back and whats striking is what the nsa did. A single Intelligence Agency says rep to stop this. The chinese operatives who are part of the army were hacking in the hack those computers and hack the home network of a chinese act are and they hack the Broader Network that was turning out these operations may hack the Internet Company so they could look at the billing records and confirm who is behind these activities . The use that information to go and be ready to defend against the pats. A cat and mouse game happens in cyberspace a daily competition. All of those was secret. Its endemic. Commonly used between the time the u. S. Was able to counter size on china and how many they make its been unfolding years and is worth saying this was one battle and a much broader war or when the espionage case in a broader campaign. It was one case in which nice tasted very well but there are many in which the chinese activity went uninhibited an expensive Chinese Campaign against a military invasion and the warplanes. The chinese hackers pulled out reams of information about displaying. The information is done to. They just make lists of filenames in the filenames and say okay we could reach ones artwork and it gives you a sense will be used point at the chinese explained how they were able to. The would have computers in thirdparty countries and then they would hack the United States from those computers and the operation or just a scraper they hacked back was they had to hack these thirdparty computer sources which have no idea they were hacking their systems and they went upstream and eventually made their way into the chinese networks. Its not just the chinese to do this. Every nation takes precautions to disguise the hand carrying out Cyber Espionage. The russians have extensive things that they were doing for period of time or they would hack Satellite Phone coming occasions and beam it down to africa because they thought western intelligence might not be looking and western intelligence agents were looking so its this constant game of trying to hide your hand so you get more freedom of operations. No blamed this is an example of nsa taking a very offensive role and it paid off in the end. It was essential for them but i was surprised by the characterization of the pla and if you would indulge me for just a second its a short mention but it describes the plas actions specifically because the chinese hackers were demonstrating a lack of discipline and Operational Security and they sometimes even logged in on their personal email accounts to check stock portfolios and watch pornography. All true. Theres two reasons why some one would be sloppiness business. The first is everyone has a budget and you can imagine the chinese hackers have a boss who wants him to hit more targets faster and they are going to be sloppy and take shortcuts and the second is they get or do they get lazy. They decide hey the chances of getting caught are exceptionally low so why not . We think of the economical stockard that the person in the hoodie behind a keyboard and in this case of someone checking their facebook profile. You focus quite a bit on the shuttle broke or so. Tell us about them and what youve learned about the shadow brokers. The shadow brokers of the single biggest mystery in the world of Cyber Operations and i think every author has their white whale that one story that every journalist has it as well the shadow brokers are mine. At some point in 2016 an essay tools incredibly powerful hacking tools. Its like fishing with dynamite. It came on twitter and other platforms and proceeded for about 11 months or so continually posting the an essay tools and a stop. And theres theories about who did and theories about why they did it. Many people guessed it was russian intelligence as a way of taking arrows out of the quiver it led to the devastating Cyber Attacks. Two attacks won by the North Koreans won by the russians along with other capabilities. One of the attacks was the most destructive cyber attack in history 10 billion in damage. Through four years later we cant pin it down we dont know who did it and thats why its one of the most significant leaks of classified information ever. I think they made it clear that they wanted money. Was this just nothing more than a criminal enterprise . Thats certainly a theory. The shadow brokers talk all the time if they got paid enough money they would stop. A former insider former contractor decided this was something they would do to get money and disappear. And its remarkable we still dont know. Opens up another interesting idea when it comes to hacking and Cyber Espionage and im not everyone had a chance to see an nsa phone program that cost 100 million from 2015 to 2019 but produced only two unique things and its based off of an ig report that questioned whether in fact this was an efficient use of money. It gives us to the larger issue of policy and oversight. Is there enough oversight of the u. S. Government Cyber Espionage and hacking . As is the congressman said at the outset this is an activity that incredibly complex. Its described as one of the simpler an essay collection programs. The biggest challenge in overseeing this program is understanding it. The role is a particularly tricky business. What happens with the change in strategy in the last couple of years . The military arm to carry south american hacking operations and for military operations has been clear the last two years than once to be more aggressive in i call the strategy persistent engagement. T