How a Secret U.S. Cyberweapon Backfired

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.3 • 107.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A criminal group has held computer systems for the city of Baltimore hostage for nearly a month — paralyzing everything from email to the real estate market to the payment of water bills. But what residents don’t know is that a major component of the malware used to shut down the system was developed nearby by a federal government agency. Guest: Scott Shane, who covers national security and the U.S. intelligence community for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:People involved in the investigation say the N.S.A. tool, EternalBlue, was found in Baltimore’s network by four contractors hired to restore computer services. The N.S.A. says that’s not the case. Cybercriminals have been targeting other vulnerable American towns and cities, from Pennsylvania to Texas, in ways that could disrupt local governments for months.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily.
0:09.0	Today, a group of online criminals has held the City of Baltimore's computer system,
0:15.0	hostage for nearly a month, paralyzing basic government functions.
0:21.0	The software used to shut the system down was developed by a government agency
0:27.0	just a few miles away.
0:33.0	It's Tuesday, June 4th.
0:38.0	So the National Security Agency was founded in 1952.
0:42.0	There were earlier eavesdropping agencies, but that was sort of the post-World War II
0:48.0	creation of one big agency to do all kinds of electronic intercepts.
0:54.0	Any way that foreigners of interest communicate, NSA tries to get there and collect.
1:02.0	Scott Sheen covers national security for the times.
1:05.0	And in perhaps the last 20 years, they have created a hacking team
1:12.0	that would break into foreign computer networks and collect intelligence.
1:17.0	And that sort of sets the backdrop to what's happening today.
1:22.0	The way NSA breaks into foreign computer networks is it first hunts for vulnerabilities,
1:29.0	as they're called, in commonly used software.
1:32.0	And very often these vulnerabilities are in windows.
1:38.0	It's extremely widely used around the world, including by governments,
1:44.0	by foreign governments, which are often the target.
1:47.0	But it's used by terrorist groups, foreign diplomats, foreign militaries, even terrorists use windows.
1:54.0	Even terrorists use windows.
1:56.0	When NSA discovers a vulnerability these days, it goes to a sort of committee overseen by the White House,
	...

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