From Russia, with malware

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What Russia hacked this time. Why America’s biggest companies are laying people off during a pandemic – while boasting record profits. And new coronavirus tests you can take at home.

The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it, as national security reporter Ellen Nakashima explains.

Some of America’s biggest companies have made a killing off the pandemic. But their record profits haven’t stopped them from laying off thousands of people, says corporate accountability reporter Doug MacMillan.

How do home tests for coronavirus work? Health and science reporter William Wan explains.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the newsroom of the Washington Post.
0:05.0	It's Robert Samuels from the Washington Post.
0:08.0	Post is Sarah Kaplan.
0:10.0	Hi, this is Elias Adi with the Washington Post.
0:13.0	They are you.
0:14.0	This is Post Reports.
0:15.0	I'm Maggie Penman.
0:18.0	It's Thursday, December 17th.
0:24.0	Today, what Russia hacked?
0:26.0	The big profitable companies laying off workers.
0:29.0	And the new at home coronavirus test.
0:36.0	So on Sunday, Reuters broke a major story that the Treasury and Commerce Department have been hacked.
0:43.0	I would appear to be a nation-state adversary.
0:49.0	That's Alan Nakashima.
0:51.0	She covers national security for the post.
0:53.0	She's been reporting on the broad, sophisticated hacking of US federal agencies that went on for months.
0:59.0	I did some reporting on that and quickly learned that it was the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, which had also earlier we learned in the week, hacked the top cybersecurity company called FireI.
1:15.0	And it turns out that all of these compromises were linked.
1:20.0	It was quickly evident that this was going to be a major campaign and not limited to just a handful or a couple of agencies.
1:30.0	The Russians had also gotten into the Department of Homeland Security.
1:35.0	We also broke the story about the State Department and the National Institutes of Health had also been compromised.
1:43.0	And it looks indeed like there will be other federal agencies that have been hit.
	...

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