Name: Watch Security Professionals Discuss Hacking
Uploaded: 2016-12-01
Duration: 12 min 27 s
Description: They think it needs to be encouraged.

[ MUSIC ] First Niko why don't you explain why you wear sunglasses because it has a lot to do with what you do. So I well used to be un- Googleable and then when I finally got coaxed out cuz when you're CEO of a company it's Hard to not be a public figure. Because there weren't any pictures of me on the internet at that point, I knew I could minimize my digital footprint. Now that might seem an extreme for all of you. But the more photos that you have out there, the easier it is for criminals and machines to be able to connect that to your identity. So always think about the digital footprint that you're leaving and decide what's right for you. What do you not wanna put out there? Like your home address, your home birthdate or where you were born. Those kind of things you can protect. So your eyes have never been on the internet you said? Not yet. Right, I got it. [ CROSSTALK ] I know that it won't happen forever. My friends have pictures of me so it won't last forever but so far. Today it's not happening. And I just, I didn't give a little intro on Nico and Nico worked on online security for more than 20 years. She's co- founder and co- chairman of Wicker which is considered the most. Impenetrable communications platform. I sent you an email and you didn't respond so. Yeah, you know what's that. [ LAUGH ] She is also chair of the Wicker Foundation and she runs a White Hat hacking camp for kids and lots of other things. So this is the expert here. And Sam is head of public policy at Stride, but she held several positions in the Obama administration and before that in the Bush administration and Homeland Security before going to the private sector. So Sam tell us a little bit about you. You wanted to be a spy. I did. And somehow I ended up us an economist, so I'm not exactly sure how that happened. But yes, and thank you for having me. I was a freshman in college when 9- 11 happened. I had no idea what I was seeing on screen. And so, I decided to study Arabic and decided to be a spy cuz my mind at the time, that's what national security was, kinda James Bondy, Homelandesque, running around in the desert. By a weird twisted fate, ended up working for the Treasury Department in Baghdad during the war for a year. And it really opened my eyes to how broad and how deep national security is. How many different pieces of it there are, economics, science and technology, and then traditional defence and intelligence. So did a stint in Baghdad and then four years in the White House working on national security and everything from climate change to nuclear weapons policy, which was fascinating. So we're here to talk about kind of navigating in an unpredictable world. What are security threats both homeland security, geopolitical security, cyber security? So, coming at this from really two very different poles but also there's a lot of connection between them. So, Meeka what are the biggest risks right now for I guess For us, in terms of cyber security and how that relates to threats that relate geopolitical security. So, for us, let's talk about us as women first, right? Okay. I teach kids how to turn on your interfacing camera on your smartphone, your laptop, and your TV. There were 200, 000 cases of extortion in Australia last year alone based off of interfacing camera pictures. As women this is a severe vulnerability for you and you're not paranoid to cover your camera. I have electrical tape, it works really well. It won't gum up your camera for selfies And it's something you can all do right now, and should be doing every day. I think on a bigger scale the IOT attack that we saw happen a month ago, where only eight devices were owned and brought down DNS servers, and Netflix, and Twitter. And many sites really showed us that we're all connected. And what you have in your home can impact our economy, and impact all of us here. And this is really important. And I think IOT Security is something that definitely keeps me up at night. We teach the kids how to break in to all these great devices you have in your home. But IOT Security is also What runs the power grids? There's devices in there that are connected to cellular, that are unencrypted. That we were able to find connections to, and we showed the kids how to shut down the power grid using an iPhone. I've known how to do that for 20 years, I guess my big question is, why hasn't it happened? It has a little bit, And I think some of those stories are covered up. But I think we're in a much greater risk scenario here than people realize. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Sam, tell us what you see in terms of geopolitical risk, and maybe opportunities, if you could. Just maybe give us a little overview. Sure, and it's funny, when I saw the title for this. I had a flashback To my morning every day at the White House for four years where we were responsible for getting the president prepared for something called the presidential daily briefing. And so the president gets a PDV every day from the intelligence community and as a staffer at the NSC, part of your job is looking at that intelligence and thinking about the risks and opportunities that the president should be aware of each day. And so when this title came my way, I had a little bit of PTSD and remember being very tired, of course, very excited to go to work. I think that the biggest risk to our national security, both for the current president and the president- elect is figuring out how to balance the tactical with the affirmative. I think so often, particularly in such an interconnected world, where news is instantaneous. And where there's always something wrong int he world. The world is never completely secure because it's a relative term also. Figuring out and making time each day for, agin, President Obama and President elect Trump to think about, yes, there are terrorist attacks, unfortunately, that are happening. There are natural disasters that you have to respond to like that But what are the really strategic things that we should be focusing on? For Obama that was climate change and the rebalance to Asia. He spent a lot of time on women's issues. So I think that if I was advising the President Elect and Telling him how to think about these issues I would encourage him to set aside ten minutes every day to do that exercise so that the events of the day don't overtake the strategic. Given that, what are the events that you think are top of mind, the biggest risks facing our country right now? I'll do one tactical and one strategic. The first tactical is the biggest existential risk I think to our national security right now. Something that could actually destroy the nation, is nuclear war. And, or a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that do something like bring down the entire electrical grid in this country. I think the biggest strategic risk is the perception of declining US power. And so both as a result of his election, even predating that, I think that the global is seeing the role of the US diminishing. And there's a great piece that Ed Lewis just did in the FT on this in fact. And the idea that the US is no longer the leading superpower and that traditional measures of power, the US doesn't measure up. And so I think that that's something that we really need to focus on. Both in a private capacity now and for policy makers. Niko does this set us up, does this make us more at risk for security breeches online from foreign entities who are hard at work that are trying to do that as we know? I think the risk is exponentially increasing all the time but yet most of us don't have this ingested in our bodies at this point. So we're still very early in the process here. To me, the biggest- What do you mean, ingested in our body? We'll have computers that we're swallowing. I was with a scientist three days ago that was working on this and has the technology, and these things- What would be the purpose of that? To monitor your body. Just like we're doing right now- And we do it on purpose. With a device on the outside. Right. But it's gonna get a lot more serious Then it is today, right, there's going to be 2, 20 billion IOT devices on the internet in the next five years so this is just beginning but I guess as a country, the biggest risk that I see right now is challenging of the first amendment. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I help organize DefCon and Roots which are the largest hack organizations in the world. And free speech is part of everything that we do. And this is what whistleblowers do, to get this information out, so people know that it's happening. And I think that free speech is the reason why this country is so strong. And I'm really worried about it moving forward. Does anybody have any questions or maybe you're scared to ask I don't know [ LAUGH ]. [ LAUGH ] I know this is a little leap Out there. Yes, right here. Here's the microphone. If you could say who you are as well. Sure, Amy [ UNKNOWN ] Lockheed Martin. So I have a lot of paranoia around what you're talking about Nico. So given the talent, you work with young talent and the connected age, millennials What's your advice on as I'm hiring those in a world where we have to watch for hackers from China every day right? What is your advice on indoctrinating them into the culture and being safe. So hacking is a skill set. And I believe it's the most important skill set for the future of the world. Gives you super powers. You can travel time and space. Now just like a mechanic, there's good mechanics and bad mechanics. But most of the hackers that I know are good hackers. Right. All of the attacks that we do, we do to make the world a better place. And because companies are negligent, and putting money before all of our security. So, what I suggest, and actually pushing, is that we teach kids from age k through 12, and all the way up until your 80s, to learn how to hack. I tell CEO's that they should be learning how to hack. This is your job. This is everyone in this room's job, and the more hacker's you have as friends, you will win. This is the new power. And it's what you need to do and by the way so at Roots Asylum, which is my non- profit teaching kids how to hack. It's naturally 50 % girls and boys and girls are tremendously good at hacking because not only do you have to understand math and how systems work but you need to understand people and society. And this is such an important skill set and something that women excel at. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Sam, you talked about business and opportunities, I mean, are there any opportunities in front of that people aren't talking about right now that you think might give us a little bit of optimism? Sure, and I'm actually gonna say something that's domestic. Because I think people misunderstand when you talked about national security and geopolitics. And you immediately assume that it's something in China, or Russia, or elsewhere, but i think the biggest opportunity particularly post election is to decrease income inequality, and wage stagnation here at home. Because, I think the greatest strength America has, I think, is our ability for self reflection. So, if we're not doing something well, we're honest with ourselves. That we're not. And post election with everything's occurred. I think the opportunity for us is to take a step back and figure out how we address the fact that such a large proportion of Americans feel like they're stuck where they are. And things aren't going to get better. And that means designing programs that help kid at a really young age get skills that they need to be competitive. That help girls help boys, whatever, and so I think that that's the biggest opportunity for us. That's arguably what has lead to the dissatisfaction that has lead to this election and it's been a problem for a while and it hasn't been addressed yet, so do you have any Reason to believe that we'll address it now? I think we have to be more analytic about it. And I think both parties understand that there's a large proportion of this country that want change, and want growth, and want their children's lives to be better than they are. So I think that with good data, And with good technology we can identify those pockets and hopefully do their better jobs. Okay. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]