Basically, not just anything and be a critical thinker to arrive at what i believe are well researched conclusions and approaches to things. Yeah, my mind will run a little wild and i will write down that wild theory i had and then i will also write down an opposing theory and as i do my research, whether it is for working on a forensic case because there has been a cyber incident or whether it is working on a book like this i always have a competing hypothesis and so as i do my research i start to make sure that i am researching am researching under both hypothesis which leads me to what, i believe, is a factbased decision. Host what in your professional background would lead you to be that conspiracy theorist as you say . Guest it is interesting and i talk about my irish grandmother and her influence on me and she read a lot of books and you know even a lot of people in my family know that this perspective of my always getting the straight scoop from people and i will learn to think for myself and that was something that my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents all ingrained in me was you may be told certain things by your superiors or by the government or by other governments but make sure you always apply Critical Thinking and make sure you put as many sources and decide to think for yourself. Dont let people tell you how to think. What is interesting is it served me well because i started off working on cutting edge Innovative Technologies and banking. In doing so i ended up the front lines of fraudsters and money wanderers and we did not call them cyber criminals yet and that really gave me that sense of i always had to be thinking about when i do this good action there could be people taking a negative action or taking advantage so that Conspiracy Theory also plays well into thinking ahead of what is the worst thing that could happen and how could unknown operatives take advantage of the situation. Host you at one time were the government, correct . Guest yes, i had the honor and pleasure of serving as clinical appointee during president george w. Bushs administration. I was there the second half of the second term and a lot of people i think that seems like that is, you know, the sun is setting and the moon is rising for a new and administration coming in and what could possibly going on but what you have to realize is the Bush Administration had a mantra, leave everything better than we found it. One of the things he was fiercely committed to and so was the senior staff that worked there was making sure that the modernization efforts both of the building, the process and the technology and security were setting up future administrations for success so it wasnt just about his legacy but also about leaving things better than we found it. I had the distinct honor of serving the country at the white house for almost two and and a half years and we modernized the technology and structure and modernizing how we thought about protecting the technical infrastructure that serves the mission of the executive office of the president. Host what was the title . Guest chief Information Officer. I was the first female to hold that role and that job is basically decisions around but the scope of that job are going to be are typically made by the Current Administration so the job is abs and flows in the Different Levels of response abilities but it was really just incredible job. I met so many career Civil Servants who are amazing and i sleep well at night knowing they are still there. I met so many amazing men and women serving in the u. S. Military secret service, cia, nsa, fbi who also served on different types of details at the executive office of the president and a great group of people to work with and many of them still serving. Host Theresa Payton, what did that lend or experience lend to your new book manipulated which you say is the most important work youve ever written . Guest what is interesting is when i got there i thought i knew a lot about the capabilities of the adversary and i was working in Financial Services when the unfortunate day of 911 happened in america and was on the front lines of trying to understand the Money Laundering and the terrorist financing and how that was happening within that American Bank infrastructure and had an opportunity to work on providing information that protected our customers privacy but at the same time answer National Certain yearly concerns on terrorist financing. That led me to think through how does the adversary target the Financial Services industry. I thought i had seen a lot but when i got to the white house and i received my clearance and started being read into special programs i started to realize that i was only looking through a keyhole of may be a broom closet of what was a multilevel, multi thousand squarefoot mansion so to speak. I only had one vertical view of the capability of the adversary and candidly, as i was leaving the administration i basically came back and told my family that i found or felt like the country had really invested a lot in me from a National Security training standpoint and that it was my lifes calling to give back to basically evangelizing through the work that we do in cybersecurity and intelligence operations for companies, the government and individuals and the reason why it motivated me to write this book was that we were going into the 2016 election cycle when i wasnt so much focused at that point in time around our cyber operatives meddling with our election infrastructure but i was really focused on how cyber operatives that were nation trained were using manipulation and Misinformation Campaigns to social engineer companies to break in, steal intellectual property, still consumer data or whatever the cybercrime tactic was and as i did that research that is when i uncovered that they were manipulating us on social issues and it was a global problem. Host Theresa Payton, as we conduct this interview are there Cyber Attacks happening on u. S. Government structures, u. S. Businesses at all times . Guest yes there absolutely is the ongoing challenge and what is interesting is in america not every country is like this. A big part of our infrastructure that is Critical Infrastructure is owned by the private sector so the majority of the internet and many of the Internet Companies that we rely upon our privatesector infrastructure and not of government or the federal government or military infrastructure. The attacks are real and i think what people may not realize is the attacks against corporate america, small businesses, the attacks against the residential infrastructure and our government infrastructure is an onslaught on a daily basis. You have to realize that most good guys in cybersecurity we have to get it right every minute of every day and the bad guys just have to get it right once and then they had their payload. Often times we have learned that the average number of days that cyber operatives are actually in a corporate infrastructure before anybody knows they are there is about 150 days. Imagine if somebody had access to crown jewels for 150 days. What could they do . They could run off with them and so that is the real near and present danger that we are facing every single day. Host but isnt it on experian or Sony Pictures or bank of america and should that be considered an act of war . Guest this is very interesting and you are right that the laws have not kept up with the technology and that is a stark reality that we will be facing for many decades to combat by the time we figure out a law and have people on the hill get along long enough to pass the law it will be outdated and our international tributes are outdated. What happens, for example to a company like sony with the headquarter in america had an north korea actually set the place on fire or done major damage to it through a bomb or other physical kinetic methods it would have been called an act of war on u. S. Soil but because it is something you cant see and you cant touch and it was digital it is not treated the same way. The International Treaties and our nations laws are woefully outdated to handle this and candidly we really do need to get around deal table and hammer out with our allies and with our enemies we need to hammer out International Treaties and accords around the cyber domain. Host is that doable . Guest it absolutely is doable. Even when the countries in the list changes from time to time who we get along with and who we dont get along with and it is something that we could use as a diplomatic market bargaining chip and to say these are the things that are off limits and these crimes are originate from your country and this is how we want you to treat those crimes. This is absolutely something that needs to be negotiated and should be done sort of in multilateral agreements. It could be something that can be discussed at the un and it nato and it definitely needs to happen because each countrys future relies upon it. Host so what do you think of the proposed cyber branch of the pentagon . Guest i think it is a fantastic idea. We have a situation where it would be incredible if we could and send men and women to consider u. S. Military as a career option to get the schooling and training and to actually spend time serving, even if they dont make a career of it. Full disclosure, both sides of my family i am from career military and i married a u. S. Navy veteran so full disclosure they are i think it could be a credible way to have a nation of people who are trained in this serving their countries that can go out into the private sector and defend our Critical Infrastructure through a privatesector operation so i love the idea and i think it is something that needed to happen maybe a decade ago and its never too late. Host your book is called the manipulated and you spend time on political manipulation and electoral interference but you write that covid political interference is nothing new in our world. Guest that is true. I spent a little time actually doing some historical Background Research for the readers because i wanted to show this isnt something that just came about because we have social media. Basically history shows to us that as soon as there were two human beings walking on earth there was some level of political asthma knowledge going on so taking everyone down a lockdown history to show where countries, including the United States leverage Propaganda Campaigns and each country justifies why they do the Propaganda Campaign and the justification in the past has been overthrowing what we perceive to be corrupt regime so im not a politician but im happy to walk through with people on policy what impacts of policy are in so i do walk everybody through that and show them so that the different types of propaganda that have happened over the years to help establish this is an ongoing human nature battle and as long as there are Different Countries vying to be economic powers or superpowers aligned to have a seat at the big kids table so to speak that you are going to have espionage activities happen. It could be economic or political or social and the other thing that i showed people in the book is that today with the misinformation and manipulation campaign it is not just about targeting it at america and trying to pick winners and losers but many of these nationstates countries who conduct these campaigns perfect the campaigns on their own citizens first because they want to show their citizens that their regime has the citizens best interest at heart and you certainly would not want what americans have, look at how much they argue with each other. You certainly dont want to be part of the eu. Look at the uk and they are leaving brexit. The beauties manipulation campaigns and perfect them at home first and then tweak them and change them and use them abroad on other country citize citizens. Host is misinformation and manipulation campaigns, are they profitable . Guest this is one of the crazy findings i had in my book and im so glad you brought this up. Yes, it is interesting. I went into this thinking that many of the nationstates when they were meddling in someone elses Political Affairs that it was mostly to either embarrass political officials or elected officials and or potentially be picking the winners and losers. What i learned is that many of these nationstates also find that it is very lucrative and they add revenue off misinformation and guess who else benefits . Unfortunately is also the social Media Companies. The different types of news organizations that are that top trusted news sources that are alternative news organizations they also make money in the process and we just saw a study just came out that said he went on was promoting all different types of Misinformation Campaigns and by the way. Facebook because they were using ads made money off these quanon Misinformation Campaigns. So, the system is in a place where in order to shut this down you could potentially have people saying my freedom of speech has been stepped on but the other thing you are sitting down is revenue. Host Theresa Payton you write that in 2017126000000 users of facebook were exposed to russian operative content. Guest yes, again this was how do you act ask americans to unseat something. Especially if what they saw actually played to a confirmation bias bid that is the reason why we tend to be vulnerable to misinformation, manipulation and even amplification campaigns which are things that are true but amplified to get you to have some type of gut reaction either positive or negative. That is the thing. You have so many people that are exposed to these Misinformation Campaigns and the question is where does that leave us. For many people it leaves people throwing their hands up and saying i dont really know what to believe and that is part of the manipulators playbook because if they can cast doubt in believing in trusted, vetted institutions within the media then it leaves you open to believing anything and especially if you see something that fits your confirmation bias. The study was done and i write about this in the book where people posted Misinformation Campaigns and someone pointed it out that it was a Misinformation Campaign that was false and they did not remove the post and did not correct themselves. They left it up because it fit their narrative. Not only do we have a challenge where its hard for them to see the information but in some cases they dont mind leaving even though they know it is false because of its a confirmation bias. Host Theresa Payton, one of the things that is often said is that we are fighting the last war so russian interference in the 2016 election and are we fighting that tree 16 war or have we moved ahead and looking ahead to 2020 . Guest the good news is we have moved ahead but the bad news is the cyber operatives in the different nationstates in russia is not alone. China, north korea and iran all look at what russia was able to accomplish they are in on the action. I even write about macedonia in the book and the fact that they dont want to manipulate the outcome of our election but they want to make money and they are pure capitalists in macedonian operations. They will promote whatever it makes them the most money so they are not trying to pick winners or losers but they are hoping all about the money. Here is some great things that has happened since 2016. One, we called the social Media Companies and told them they had to come up on the hill and they had to do a better job disclosing these Misinformation Campaigns and fighting the good fight here and we are doing better but a lot more needs to be done. Same thing around probing of the state. The probing of states websites from a Voter Registration databases, donor roles and the websites themselves that tell you when you can early vote how to get your absentee ballot and a lot of work has been done with the states and the division to improve our Election Security infrastructure. We are not fighting the last battle of the last president ial election cycle. We have upped our a game but russia, china, north korea, iran they have not given up and, by the way, unscrupulous political operatives right here in america are also leveraging social medias misinformation m and ablation campaigns. The key thing for people to take away is dont allow these campaigns to convince you your vote does not matter because that is when they win. You have to get out and vote. Dont allow these campaigns to unduly influence what you vote for and against. Make sure your checking sources and make sure you are measuring out what you are hearing what you are reading and what you are seen in doing your own fact checking. Host do you have confidence in our electronic Voting System . Guest i think weve got some documented challenges still with electronic Voting Systems. But i do have confidence in is everything is hack a bowl and if something someone tells you is not run the other direction because they dont know what they are talking about. There are documented vulnerabilities in our electronic voting practices and equipment and what gives me a lot of hope in this e