A it's Michael. This, has been a year, unlike any other, and throughout it we ve tried to tell the story of just how profoundly people's lives have changed in places like Odessa, Texas, where we followed one schools attempt to reopen. during the pandemic. Now, as the school year comes to a close I'll, be home alive virtual Yvette, taking you behind The scenes of the making of that powerful series you hear from the producers who created the teachers and students who were documented in it and a performance by the Odessa, high school, marching bad plus they'll, be a commencement address from a surprise speaker. So join us this. day night June, tenth at six p m eastern time. Subscribers can rsvp at any one time start com, slash graduation and thanks

from your times, I'm Michael, this is a daily over the past few weeks have whose demanding exorbitant ransoms have repeatedly held hostage, vital segments of the american economy, threatening everything from the energy industry to the food supply today. Sabrina tavern easy spoke with our colleague, Nicole Poland, about why the attack are becoming so calm and who exactly is behind them.

It's Tuesday, June Nicole, I keep seeing these headlines about ransom where attacks, but I dont actually have a very good sense of what is happening. Explained me. What's been. On the last few weeks. So we ve actually been seeing this. Never ending on flight of ransom are attacks, but what happened over the last few weeks is that two key industries were hit with grants. Aware colonial pipeline colonial pipeline living your pipeline, though there was a ransom where attack on colonial pipeline targeted the colonial pipeline that runs from the Texas Gulf Coast through the southeast up to the northeast. Fifty five hundred miles, so workers showed up to work turned on their computer.

yours, but instead of being able to access their email or other key operations, they were met with a ransom where no and the low basically said we ve held your data and your systems hostage until you pay millions of dollars, the company to fight authorities and hired outside from to investigate all of it. You can imagine this may have an impact on already rising gas prices, so it collooney The company just shut down the pipeline, because with its billing systems frozen, it had no way to charge customers and added resolve those girls vision by me as out of regular gas, and there are thousands of gas station just like this one up and down the EAST Coast use up panic buying at the palm you saw. Nonstop flights have to ground themselves to pick up your en route to their destinations. This had a really big dresser. All of that, the FBI is investigating another major cyber attack affecting a key part of our economy. Now it's the meat industry and in the second big

I was on J B asked, which is one of the world's biggest beef suppliers. Gps is forced to bring all of its new S plans to a hall after this crippling cyber attack and their ransom. Where criminals hit the company in the middle of beef short edge. The attack eating his summer celebrations ramp up with fathers day in July for just around the corner and so with bad. It have you just started. Seeing the price of beef go up on men used in and you start seeing a lot of panic lying around supplies Ok, so in both of these cases, we're seeing these ransom where attacks, which looked like a tax just on individual companies

actually have an effect on the entire infrastructure of the american economy. So as a cyber security reporter, what did you think when you saw the news of these recent attacks? Well for one, I wasn't surprised, you know we have been seeing ransom where attacks on all kinds of industry is just in the last couple months we ve seen ransom are attacks on american mainstays, not just gas and me by television networks, police departments, NBA, basketball teams, minor league baseball fairies tomorrow as vineyard hospitals and what's happening in the background, is that these ran somewhere. Groups have been coming for our businesses and municipalities and cities and towns for a long time, but all of a sudden there hitting these industries that Americans are feeling for the first time. We have that

very prudent, powerful image of gas running out, and people not being able to get me out of their fourth of July vacations and so suddenly, you're seeing this big freak out among government agencies who have worried about ran somewhere for a long time. But suddenly the problem is really catching up to them What about? We got some breaking news. The justice department is elevating run somewhere attacks to a similar priority level as terrorism following last month's colonial pipeline attack. FBI director Christopher RE last week, suicide said dealing with ran somewhere is like dealing with the challenge of Global, too resumed after nine eleven well update everyone read somewhere cyber attack that impacted on the colonial part. You saw inside and get up to the podium and for the first time an american president was speaking to the threat of

and somewhere in or just to support moves launched a new task force dedicated to press. Ran somewhere. Hackers to the full extent of the law says that only you see that's scramble to deal with something. That's been a pretty constant problem for the last couple years. Ok, so what you ve been describing is a billion dollar industry that most of us didn't even realize exists, how do we get to this point? So Orient somewhere has been going on for a long time, but when I first started covering less about ten years ago it looked very different. This was thing that was hitting people's individual computers in Europe. People would log onto their computer and they would see around somewhere, not only it purported to come from inner

All are the FBI and it said: hey we locked up your computer. We know you ve been looking at some illegal sites. Sometimes it's pornography and we need you to pay this fine and the fines or something like a hundred to two hundred euros in those days and at the time cyber security experts warn me that eventually this would come for the United States and when it dead, it didn't look that bread. It was ransom, our group's holding up individual pc users and demanding one hundred to two hundred dollars and fines. But does what happened in twenty seventeen that really brought brands, murder, the next level, and that was a here we started seeing nation states used, ran somewhere to bring entire companies and industries to their knees. So just a back up that year we had seen

group come out of nowhere. We still don't know who they are, but someone started showing up on Twitter. They call themselves the shadow brokers, week a group called shadow brokers release what purports to be top secret computer. that the USA has reportedly used to break into foreign government systems and they claim to have hot, the USA and, over a period of several months between twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, they started dribbling out some of the annexes. best kept talking to us. These are tools you used to break into an entire fire wall for an entire computer network. This allows you to by pass all the defences to simply walk in and be able to get into that network. More importantly, undetected and in twenty seventeen we, Actually saw North Korea pick up one of the annexes own towards and use it in a global ransom where attack that the industry called Wanna cry

Fiber security experts are scrambling to recover from a massive cyber attack that hit nearly every corner of the world, while a cry has paralysed computers and by some government agencies and factories in one hundred fifty countries, since it was, wished, and really the lasting legacy of want to cry was that it didn't come for individual pc users. It hit entire businesses and hospitals. Volvo ready to go farther off is one surgeons and Open said. Unfortunately, we ve been the oxen, nothing we can do without them. It actually hit the british health system or focus at the moment is making sure that we end the disruption being caused by this particular attack, and so we have these very powerful image. Is an ambulance says that we're getting turned away from hospitals in the UK that had been held up with this north Korean ran somewhere, and it was the first time

see that we have some, where wasn't just something that would hold up an individual's computer with something that good cripple and entire hospital or entire industries, and it actually got worse so, one month after the north korean attack, we saw Russia pick up the same. An essay tools and use them in their own attack this time. Just Ukraine, it every major ukrainian government agency. It hit the railways, it hit their post offices, it head ATM people can get money out of The arms, and not only that it actually ended up hitting any business that had the operation and Ukraine. Even a single employees working from Ukraine, so it actually hit Fedex better suffered. Something like

four hundred million dollars in damages it hit Merk Merk actually had to tap into the CDC emergency supplies. The guard, a cell vaccine that year it has had very egg factories and tat- means all told it actually costs ten billion dollars in damage. Is it was to this day the most destructive cyber attack that we ve seen. But the legacy from nodded hang is that it really opened cyber criminals eyes to just how vulnerable these american business as some of our most critical business as work, who ran somewhere and that these were really ripe targets.

all the way back. The following message is brought you by Charles Schwab, the distance between Washington in Wall Street, did shorter all the time from the government's response to the corona virus pandemic to the upcoming election. The policies in politics coming out of Washington are sure to impact markets MIKE Townsend as vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs host the original podcast Washington, wise investor, where he takes a non partisan, look at the stories that matter most to investors, listening Schwab, DOT, com, Slash Washington, wise or wherever you get your podcast Nick. What what is it about american companies in particular that made them so vulnerable to these ransom? Where attacks well at the hall

stop things, but I think it really just comes down to incentive models for businesses. New, I'm based in Silicon Valley, an operating and now here among big tech company is and start. Ups is still very much mark. Zuckerberg, move fast and break things got your software to market or the competition, and you will win and you can fix the bugs in your software and security glitches leader At the same time, we ve all bought into the Silicon Valley promise ever frictionless society. We have just been baking this buggy software into so many of our core industry is like gas lake meet like our factory production, like hospitals, and we never stop to think that maybe we were creating the world's re best attack surface, and so these ransom, where groups realize.

that they could hold an entire businesses hostage and not just charge than one hundred or two hundred dollars that millions, of dollars to get their data back? And you start seeing businesses even police departments, be willing to pay these fines just to get their data back. We are learning that colonial pipeline did pay a ransom and the hackers had demanded about five million dollars in crypto currency from the world. Just in the past hour, NBC News has confirmed reports that colonial pipeline did pay nearly five billion dollars in ransom to those hackers, women, brood The company is it legal to pay these groups made, isn't paying them essentially making the problem worse. Yeah, so it's not illegal and the FBI has come out and said we really

I urge you not to pay these ransoms, The reality on the ground is that when a company. That's held hostage with this ran somewhere oftentimes. The cost of the ransom is still cheaper than the cost of rebuilding their systems and data from scratch, so there was actually a ransom or attack in Baltimore those pretty bad. A couple years ago, and the hackers were demanding something like seventy five thousand dollars and Bitcoin to hand them their data back, Baltimore refused to pay, and ultimately, the cost to rebuild all of those services that have been destroyed and held hostage in there and some are attack, was eighteen million dollars and so over it.

Over again. You see businesses and their ensures really calculate that they should just go ahead and pay the ransom, because the ransom demand is still so much cheaper than the cost to rebuild wow. That's amazing! Eighteen million versus seventy five thousand dollars. Yeah! That's a lesson I would take from that right and whose getting all this money court carrying out these attacks like the one Baltimore and the one against the oil pipeline. So these are just people looking to make many new. Usually these are people who were working out of office as almost like start ups and they're holding these businesses hostage for ransom, but the more companies and victims were willing to pay their ransoms, the more money they were getting and these became pretty sophisticated enterprises. Some of them are making hundreds of millions of dollars. Just over the past year.

Right now, the FBI's as its tracking about a hundred different ransom where groups some of those are based in North Korea and IRAN. They popped up and Turkey but the vast majority of them are in Eastern Europe and we think most of them are actually based in Russia and why Russia will put in his actually give in Russia Cyber Criminal, safe harbour. He won't arrest them and he won't extradite them when we indicted here and really, we think Putin has only to rules for Russia cybercriminals first as Doris Pack targets inside the motherland, and we actually see that in the code and a lot of these ransom where attacks the groups will go out of their way to search year, com Peter for its default language setting and if you are a russian language speaker, it wont in fact you at all move right along the second rule, We think Putin has is when we ask you to do a favor, you do whatever we asked

and not allow Russia to basically tap into these cybercriminals for some of its more sensitive operations, so that should they get high at the government can always say we had nothing. To deal with as we had no idea. These are cybercriminals, they operate on their own and we have actually seen Putin come out and say something to this backed a few years ago. He said: listen hackers like artists, they just get up in the morning and start paining. We have no say over but they do or don't deal, and that gives the government cover shouldn't need to use these cybercriminals for some of these more sensitive operations. So, from the perspective of the United States, this seems like a creates, a real national security threat if ransom, where attacks coming for the bedrock of our economy and they could be coming from the russian state.

from these groups of cybercriminals. What can we do about this? It's not an easy task and it's pretty complicated, but International level really starts where biting get up on the podium and speaking to the threat of ransom, where, for the first time as an american president, its working with other allies to come up with cohesive policy around our response to ransom, are attacks and then domestically its things like should Treasury a law that makes it a legal for victims of ransom are attacks to pay these ransoms. But the hardest thing need to do. Is cyber hygiene? It's making ourselves less vulnerable, it's all the things that we ve been told me needed to do for a very long time, creating different passwords for different websites. Turning on two backdoor authentication running your software updates and your security updates, and that's where the focus really needs

So a lot of it is really just on us. The boring, quiet, slow work of turning on two step, authentication, that's right. They have their say that security is only as good as your weakest link and individuals and employs continue to be the weakest links, and you know when you think about the colonial pipeline attack. Think of it is almost a massive attack on our country, but when it came down to you was an employee who had this. all inactive account whose password had been stolen and they hadn't turn onto backdrop an occasion to as long as we're making it that easy for these ransom work. Ribs these ransom are attacked will continue and it doesn't matter what we're doing

at the international level when it so easy to just hack an american company using a stolen password. These attacks won't go away. I call thank you think he thought having me the sophisticated use of technology to hold businesses and even hall cities. Hostage for profit is decidedly a twenty first sent three challenge, but the old adage follow the money still applies. On Monday afternoon, the Department of Justice said that it had recovered much of a round sum paid by colonial,

I plan to end the ransom where attack staged by dark side. During a new conference federal officials said they had seized. Two point: three million dollars worth of the coin, held by dark side, a little more than half of the ransom paid by colonial. Today we turned the tables on dark side. Would right back.

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during her first foreign trip, as vice president commonly Harris travelled to Guatemala, where sheep monthly warned immigrants across Central America against illegally crossing into the United States. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure, Border they are legal methods by which migration can and should occur. The trip marks, the beginning of a broader view, has led by Harris to break. cycle of poverty and migration in the region and ultimately to stop the flow of migrants to the? U S border tidies, episode was produced by Robert Jemison, Daniel, be met and any breath it was edited by Angela Davis lit engineered by Chris Wood and contains original music by Dan PAL

That's it for the daily on Michael by Cinema. This podcast is supported by comments shop, thousands of car Maxine Equality vehicles at car, max dot com and by a mind from the comfort of home, then take a full month and up to fifteen hundred miles to love it or return. It learn more at car max dot com