The shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline revealed a troubling weakness — most of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned by private sector companies, and most of that infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattack. What will it take to keep pipelines and grids secure?
Guests
Nicole Perlroth, cybersecurity reporter for the New York Times. Guest lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Author of “This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends.” (@nicoleperlroth)
Mark Montgomery, executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan, intergovernmental body. (@MarkCMontgomery)
Kiersten Todt, managing director of the Cyber Readiness Institute. (@kierstentodt)
Book Excerpt
Originally published on Literary Hub. Excerpted from This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. Used with permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2021 by Nicole Perlroth.
From The Reading List
New York Times: “Colonial Pipeline paid 75 Bitcoin, or roughly $5 million, to hackers.” — “Colonial Pipeline paid its extortionists roughly 75 Bitcoin, or nearly $5 million, to recover its stolen data, according to five people briefed on the transaction.”
New York Times: “Pipeline Attack Yields Urgent Lessons About U.S. Cybersecurity” — “For years, government officials and industry executives have run elaborate simulations of a targeted cyberattack on the power grid or gas pipelines in the United States, imagining how the country would respond.”
Tech Republic: “Biden’s executive order faces challenges trying to beef up US cybersecurity” — “The EO is designed to protect federal networks, foster information sharing between the government and private sector, and better respond to cyber incidents. But will it do the trick?”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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