The Cyberattack We’re Not Ready For

**Nicole Perlroth** (0:00)
I wrote a book about the humans and what it takes to find these zero-day exploit capabilities. If you had asked me, hey, write a sequel and you can make it fiction, make it science fiction. What is the nightmare next chapter of this thing?
I would have written a book that didn't look that different from the era we are entering right now, where AI can essentially find his vulnerabilities and turn them on anyone they choose.

**Kara Swisher** (0:41)
Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Nicole Perlroth, a leading expert on cybersecurity and cyber conflict. Nicole spent a decade covering cybersecurity, digital espionage, and sabotage as a reporter at the New York Times, more stepping out to become a founder and managing partner at Silver Buckshot Ventures, a cyber moonshot fund investing in cybersecurity companies. She's also the author of one of my favorite books, This is How They Tell Me the World Ends, about the global cyber arms race. It's a must read. The latest season of our award-winning investigative podcast, To Catch a Thief, exposes North Korea's infiltration of American companies via a pipeline of remote IT labor that's sending hundreds of millions of dollars back to the regime and its nuclear weapons program. The season finale is out this week. I just love Nicole. I think she talks in plain English about some very serious and complicated threats in the United States and most democracies around misinformation, around cybersecurity, around the efforts of this administration to undercut our cybersecurity and more. And she's just always a straight shooter and I really appreciate it. Our expert question today comes from Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike and the chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, Washington DC based geopolitical think tank. So stick around. And one more thing before we get started, if you're going to be in Washington DC today, July 16th, please join us live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center for a taping of On. I'll be talking to Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary under President Biden and former Rhode Island governor about what AI means for the workforce. And as a special bonus before that conversation, I'll be speaking with Johns Hopkins University president Ron Daniels and the University of Notre Dame president Father Robert Dowd to talk about how universities are approaching AI and workforce issues. You can get tickets and learn more at voxmedia.com/karaswisherlive.
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Nicole, thanks for coming on On.

**Nicole Perlroth** (3:21)
Thanks so much for having me. It's so good to be back.

**Kara Swisher** (3:24)
When you were on the show just over a year ago, you said you were most concerned about, quote, everything, everywhere, all at once cyber scenario or multiple simultaneous cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. In a short period of time, we've experienced more geopolitical instability and rapid advances in AI, but so far we've avoided this worst case scenario. Is that still your number one worry? Talk a little bit about what's changed in a year.

**Nicole Perlroth** (3:48)
Everything's changed. Last year I was saying we were worried about this quote, everything everywhere all at once cyber scenario based on what we were actually seeing Chinese hackers pre-position in, which to jog everyone's memory and it's still happening, is water, power, pipeline infrastructure, high-speed rail, aviation, ports, logistics, that's all still happening. We had to contemplate this nightmare scenario of what would happen if all of these hackers detonated on the access they have all at once. So it wouldn't just be one colonial pipeline, but hacks on critical infrastructure across the country. I always thought that it was unlikely that they would detonate on all these things at once unless they were making a move on Taiwan and they wanted us to think twice about whether we wanted to support this island 7,000 miles away. Even in that case, they would maybe go for one water treatment facility and power grid hack here or there, just flicker the lights on and off.
Okay. The problem is now we're in the Mythos era.