WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:04.919
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back everybody. Today, we're going to be looking at

2
00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:09.160
<v Speaker 1>inside China's cyber war and US defense research. If you've

3
00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.439
<v Speaker 1>been watching the world lately, you know the nature of

4
00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:14.240
<v Speaker 1>warfare has completely shifted. It's not just about boots on

5
00:00:14.279 --> 00:00:16.199
<v Speaker 1>the ground. It's not just about who has the biggest

6
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:20.640
<v Speaker 1>carrier strikes or the quiet submarines. The most dangerous battles

7
00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:24.079
<v Speaker 1>being fought right now are helping are happening in silence.

8
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:27.160
<v Speaker 1>They're happening on servers, data centers, and the networks of

9
00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:31.120
<v Speaker 1>our most sensitive institutions. And most Americans have absolutely no

10
00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:35.039
<v Speaker 1>idea we are actively losing a digital war. But Google's

11
00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:38.520
<v Speaker 1>Threat intelligence group dropped the bombshell report. They're exposed a massive,

12
00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:42.719
<v Speaker 1>multi year cyber espionage campaign orchestrated by a highly sophisticated

13
00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:49.000
<v Speaker 1>threat actor known as UNC sixty five oh eight, a

14
00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:53.000
<v Speaker 1>China and Nexus state sponsored hacker group, China cyber soldiers

15
00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.960
<v Speaker 1>working directly for the People's Republic of China, and what

16
00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:58.359
<v Speaker 1>they pulled off should scare the heck out of every

17
00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:02.399
<v Speaker 1>single one of us. These folks didn't target random infrastructure.

18
00:01:02.439 --> 00:01:04.719
<v Speaker 1>They went off, They went after the crown jewels. They

19
00:01:04.719 --> 00:01:09.560
<v Speaker 1>targeted North American medical, academic and military research institutions. The

20
00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:12.799
<v Speaker 1>place is developing the next gen of American tech medical

21
00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:16.560
<v Speaker 1>breakthroughs in US defense. I know you're asking, how did

22
00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:18.319
<v Speaker 1>they get in? They found a weak point in an

23
00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:21.959
<v Speaker 1>externally facing platform called REDCAP. For those who don't know,

24
00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:25.280
<v Speaker 1>REDCAP stands for Research Electronic Data Capture. It's a secure

25
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.799
<v Speaker 1>web application used by scientists, military researchers, and doctors to

26
00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:32.879
<v Speaker 1>build and manage online databases. It's exactly where you store

27
00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.280
<v Speaker 1>highly classified, highly sensitive data when you're running advanced trials

28
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:40.560
<v Speaker 1>UNC sixty five. OHA found a way to crack those

29
00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:42.840
<v Speaker 1>servers open, and once they got inside, they didn't just

30
00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.439
<v Speaker 1>smash and grab. That's not how these elite state actors operate.

31
00:01:46.519 --> 00:01:49.319
<v Speaker 1>They play the long game. They deployed a highly customized

32
00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:53.519
<v Speaker 1>piece of malware called infinitord. Think of infiniture as a

33
00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:56.879
<v Speaker 1>digital ghost. It's a customer built, custom built tool designed

34
00:01:56.920 --> 00:02:00.000
<v Speaker 1>for one specific purpose to sit quietly in the show

35
00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:03.239
<v Speaker 1>shadows of a network, harvest credentials, steal user names and

36
00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:07.760
<v Speaker 1>passwords passwords, and maintain what the tech world calls persistence.

37
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:11.240
<v Speaker 1>They stayed hidden inside some of these environments for over

38
00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:13.479
<v Speaker 1>a year. Think about that for a second. For twelve

39
00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:17.439
<v Speaker 1>plus months, Chinese intelligence operators had a backdoor key to

40
00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:21.680
<v Speaker 1>American military and medical research networks. They were sitting in

41
00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.960
<v Speaker 1>the room virtually reading over the shoulders of our top

42
00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.120
<v Speaker 1>scientists and defense strategists. So what are they looking for?

43
00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:32.639
<v Speaker 1>Everything that matters for the next fifty years of global dominance.

44
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.240
<v Speaker 1>They exfiltrated massive trops of data on advanced medical research.

45
00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:40.639
<v Speaker 1>They stole US defense strategy documents. They targeted advanced technology,

46
00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:43.560
<v Speaker 1>cutting edge artificial intelligence, and this is the part that

47
00:02:43.599 --> 00:02:49.400
<v Speaker 1>really hits home. Autonomous and uncrude systems, drone technology, robotic warfare,

48
00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:51.360
<v Speaker 1>the exact tech that our guys are going to rely

49
00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:54.039
<v Speaker 1>on in the field to stay alive. If you want

50
00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:56.240
<v Speaker 1>to defeat America in a conflict ten years from now,

51
00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:57.719
<v Speaker 1>you don't want to wait for the war to start.

52
00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:00.080
<v Speaker 1>You steal the bootprints where they're still being written. If

53
00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.159
<v Speaker 1>you want to defeat the soccer team in the World

54
00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:04.639
<v Speaker 1>Cup before, you don't want to wait for them to

55
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:06.759
<v Speaker 1>start implementing their strategy. You want to know what it

56
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.719
<v Speaker 1>is beforehand if you can. But the technical but the

57
00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:14.039
<v Speaker 1>technical sophistication didn't stop at the malware. The Google thread

58
00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:17.080
<v Speaker 1>hunters discovered that these guys were using incredibly novel techniques

59
00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.439
<v Speaker 1>to get the data out of our house and into theirs.

60
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.599
<v Speaker 1>They actually manipulated Google workspace compliance rules. Think about how

61
00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:26.719
<v Speaker 1>brilliant this is. They didn't use some loud, aggressive file

62
00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.800
<v Speaker 1>transfer protocol that were triggered alarm. They quietly altered the

63
00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:33.759
<v Speaker 1>internal administrative rules of the victim organization's own Google system.

64
00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.400
<v Speaker 1>They made the system itself bypass its own security checks,

65
00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:41.159
<v Speaker 1>treating the data theft like a routine, compliant, autumn heated task.

66
00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.360
<v Speaker 1>By the time security teams realized what was happening, that

67
00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:49.000
<v Speaker 1>data was already gone. Fortunately, Google's Threat Intelligence group caught

68
00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.400
<v Speaker 1>onto this. They acted. They disrupted the infrastructure of the

69
00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.240
<v Speaker 1>UNC six y five oh eight was running, was using

70
00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.280
<v Speaker 1>to run these operations, and that've been burning the men

71
00:03:57.319 --> 00:04:00.719
<v Speaker 1>out OZO notifying the effected organizations to help them patch

72
00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:05.000
<v Speaker 1>the holes and kick these ghosts out. But who is this?

73
00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:08.879
<v Speaker 1>But who else is there? Who else is in there

74
00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:12.039
<v Speaker 1>right now that we haven't caught, That's the real question.

75
00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.479
<v Speaker 1>This is not an isolated incident. This is a highly coordinated,

76
00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.000
<v Speaker 1>incredibly well funded, asymmetrical war being waged against the US.

77
00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:23.759
<v Speaker 1>When we're distracted by the news, nonsense, and the politics.

78
00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:28.399
<v Speaker 1>Our adversaries are systematically draining our intellectual property and dismantling

79
00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:31.279
<v Speaker 1>our tech edge. If we don't start taking cybersecurity as

80
00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.079
<v Speaker 1>seriously as we take kinetic warfare, we're gonna wake up

81
00:04:35.079 --> 00:04:37.240
<v Speaker 1>one day and realize we lost the war before a

82
00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:40.199
<v Speaker 1>shot wasn't ever fired. Stay safe out there, everyone, and

83
00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:41.000
<v Speaker 1>stay vigilant.