friendship or in washington coming up, just weeks after cyber tech jammed the largest fuel pipeline on the east coast of the united states. colonial theo has faced congress straight ahead, will go over the testimony and the recent wave of rent where tax. this comes as the bite it administration has ramped up its scrutiny of crypto currency for its role in these types of cyber attacks. want to discuss that as well. and then actually see it's putting so called mean stocks in their crop here. later on, we're going to break down the impact on market volatility. we have in fact, show today to dive right in and we leave the program with the fall out from a cyber attack on one of america's largest fuel pipelines last month, which created gas shortage is throughout the eastern united states and raised questions about vulnerability of crucial energy infrastructure throughout the nation. colonial pipeline. theo, joseph blunt, appeared before the senate homeland security committee tuesday to discuss the hack . just one month ago we were, the victims of

a ranch were attacked by cyber criminal group, and that attack encrypted arch i t systems. although the investigation is still ongoing, and we believe the attacker exploded the legacy vpn profile that was not intended to be in use. i made the decision to pay and i made the decision to keep the information about the payment is confidential as possible. it was the hardest decision i made in my 39 years in the energy industry. and i know how critical our pipeline is to the country. we are further hardening our cyber defenses. we have rebuilt and restored or critical i t systems and are continuing to enhance our safeguards. but we are not where i want us to be. and the rest where attackers had gained access to colonial computer networks in april using a compromised password. blunt confirmed, it was not protected through multi factor authentication. now, meanwhile, officials from the department of justice and outs monday, they were able to recover a majority of the $4400000.00 encrypted currency ransom paid to the dark side.

hackers. today we announced the seizure of millions of dollars in big point, paid by an innocent victim in ransom in a bid to regain control of computer systems. the extortionist will never see this money. we identified a virtual currency wallet that the dark side actors used to collect a payment from a victim. using law enforcement authorities, victim funds were seized from that wallet, preventing dark side actors from using. enjoining about a dig into the details is morgan, right? is chief security advisor with that no one and former senior advisor to the us state department, anti terrorism assistance program. morgan. thank you so much for joining us today. i want to start with the hearing that happened. what if anything, did we actually learn and did colonial seem to handle this ransomware attack correctly? brent, thanks for having me on having testified before congress before these things are

well scripted and i can tell you as a witness such as the ceo, most of his testimony was prepared by lawyers. so he's only going to say what's not going to get them in trouble. he's only going to say what is already known. that being said, we did learn some stuff. one of the important things i think we learned was that the f b, i got involved early to help target this. and this is what help at least callback some of the big coin some of the ranch money as to whether or not they handled it correctly. that's kind of a tough question because you know, he's the seo he's going to make a decision. but i will tell you this in our research. it's a one and other companies have come to the same conclusion. if you pay once, they will target you again and they think that you will pay twice. so paying the ransom doesn't always ensure you'll get your files back, but it does ensure that you're going to get targeted again, high probability. and i wanted to bring that point because to a certain extent, as we mentioned there at the, at the end of that intro, is that they were able to recoup that crypto currency ransomware that they had a ransom that they paid. so in that case, in that situation, did that to

a certain extent, deter the types of cyber attacks because they know, oh, if they pay a bit coin, they may be able to pull it back right away. or was that just the hackers? maybe not doing a good enough job of matching. all of that. i'm an old friend of mine actually. paula bought it from the f. b i that was given that part of the press release. yeah, you know, part of it was the operational security. they made some mistakes and it allowed them to identify the wallet that the big coin was being held in. but i guarantee, but it's not a deterrent. you know why it's like having been a law enforcement 18 years working with folks from the f b. i da, your name it, you arrest somebody. 10 people take their place, your rest one drug dealer, 10 more. take your place so well it, it won't stop anybody from doing this. all. it means at least for this one victim, at least for this, this one incident. we've gotten some of the money back, but the only true way to really stop wrench worst actually stop ransomware, that the actual malware itself. you'll never arrest your way out of this. you'll never policy your way out of this or sanction your way out of this. it's not just

going to stop that. it's got to come down to technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, stopping these attacks from happening before they even get started. and that's what i wanted to bring up next because the way how it's actually called on businesses to strengthen their crypt or cybersecurity defense is saying it is actually their responsibility. say basically that the government can't do it alone. and these attacks, they're not new over the last few years, typically we've heard so much about municipalities being hit as well as businesses . so you mentioned that we need to figure out how to stop these ransomware, ransomware attacks. and that could be through new technology, but have companies also dropped the ball on protecting themselves at this point. you know, i think there are some companies out there that, that they look at a business strategy has been a collection of 49 for 90 day business plans if they're publicly traded. we've got to get past that so that they've got to start realizing that cybersecurity, the, the security and defense of their infrastructure is more than a profit and loss center is a critical, vital component of the operations of their company. now on the other hand,

government needs to kind of get out of the way. i mean, they're not the exactly the poster child per cybersecurity, you know, in a lot of areas. however, if they come up with the right policies, they can incentivize additional investment into cybersecurity giving tax tax breaks or some kind of relief. but on the other hand, they need to have a big stick. they need a digital version of sarbanes oxley to stop this digital pandemic branch more. so at some point, i think you're going to be given a carrot. but at some point, if you don't do it, you'll be given the stick. and as we saw during sarbanes oxley, c. e o went to jail and i can tell, you know, c e o wants to be up for a walk in orange. and you know, before we wrap this up and we only have about a minute left, you know, how critical is, you know, the infrastructure angle of this and how vulnerable is infrastructure at this point to cyber attacks. like the you know, i used to write for the hill road, a lot of articles around this thing about the, the, the fragility of the energy grid where we are, from our critical infrastructure. 85 percent of the critical infrastructure in the

united states is owned by the private sector. there are federal regulations on top of it, especially to help you know, regulate those things. but you know what it boils down to, it's gotta be a mindset. it's gotta be a change in how we do the problem. you must change the entire space industry by saying, why can't we just reuse rockets, you know, so we've got to get, get past as well. let's figure out how to respond or, and stop in arrest. you know, these criminals and stop them from doing, you know, we've got to apply the right technology to stop this in its tracks. don't even let it happen. that's the mind changed into a new technology brand. i think what we'll see is a big change, because then it will be irrelevant if ransomware, but there's a day of reckoning coming for crypto currency to that'll be the regulation somewhere. and cybersecurity expert, morgan, right, we're going to have you back on soon to dig more into this, because this is great insight. we really appreciate it. thank you so much. you bet . and with all of this in my, let's go a little deeper into the chris crypto currency aspect and what is happening with digital currencies including bitcoin. and we're going to bring in a criminal currency analysts and blue bus co host,

ben swan and christiane. to do just that, ben, i want to start with you because we just talked about the issue of how the f b. i managed to get back a large portion of this ransom. we just talked about it from a cybersecurity side. what do we need to know from the crypto currency side? yeah, there's a couple of pretty interesting things here that have been glossed over in most of the reporting, even in the press conferences that were held earlier today. so as a journalist, let me just say this, there is so much about the story that just seems off. it doesn't really make sense . so let me just leave the table here for a minute. so 1st of all, you have colonial pipeline that originally said that hackers from the dark side got into their systems. they've been not the hackers, but the ceo shut down operations about pipeline. then decided to pay a $4400000.00 ransom in bitcoin for what so that the c e o could turn the pipeline back on and get them out of the billing system because that's exactly what happened . and now we know that the f b i because they came in early,

was able to clawback some of that. bitcoin of the $75.00 bitcoin that were paid about $63.00 bitcoin were brought back. and why was that? because it went to some kind of a wallet that they were able to follow and trace to chain analysis, which is all true. you can absolutely do that. the problem is just because the f b, i can identify which wallet and where it went to doesn't mean that you have access to it. the only way the f b i would have access is that they actually had the private key. some of the reporting on this indicates that the f b, i did in fact have the private key of the wallet that this big coin was transferred to. how that has not been explained so far. how is it that some of this, most of this in fact because that went into this wallet, the f b, i held the private key to it because just because you can find out where it is doesn't mean you can access. so that part of the story has not been explained either the f b i had access to someone else's wallet was able to access this key on some level

through hacking of their own, which again, most hackers aren't gonna keep that on the private keys to their big point, wallet online, they're not gonna keep access to it that way. so how did the f b i get all i'm saying is, well i'm, i guess i'm not saying i just don't know. i don't know the answer to what, but i just think this story stinks from top to bottom. there's a lot here that very straight and as a crypt layman, that was actually something that really struck me as well. which was that i was like, okay, i guess you could see where it went, the address. but, but how did you get the password to get in there? very much? christy. tuesday wasn't really a good day for bitcoin. as all of this news happened, it dropped around 11 percent. i. how much of that is actually connected to the pipeline story? well, a big part of it was because then the 1st plans i was also shock because i thought that this would mean that there was a compromise in the bitcoin network security. but it is very highly unlikely that the f b, i actually had the small it with brute force tactics. so i think that it was

a big black p r stuff to show that they can strike a blow against big coin and make the big public statement. but to be clear, a lot of this reporting is actually false because there's no way, no way that they can actually obtain a private key. there was no hack. the fed didn't do anything innovative here. they use legal mechanisms to track it publicly available ledger. so there was no hijacking here at a lot of the reporting, made it out to be because coin is secure through a currently unbreakable cryptographic formula known as the elliptic curve digital structure algorithm. so it would be a computing miracle to break that although they would love to give off the impression and introduce doubt about the security of the network. so what happened was a d o, a warrant where access to service in northern california from monday actually give us a lot of detail about how this entire thing actually happened. so what most likely happen is that they attain this warrant for a bit point, wallet or exchange that had their service station in northern california. so

basically which custodian do we know in northern california climate? so once the feds were able to identify the hot while it became a routine process to then sees the online servers and the funds through legal channels. and once again, another example of not your keys, not your fun, that's what you get for holding it in a custodian while it's so the b service could have belonged to point base or couldn't belong to amazon either way. the warrants were issued in northern california, so that does give us a little bit of insight there. but the point is also continued to see some pressure from china, from the crypto mining operations and trading, where wave accounts encrypted have them blocked. but i think a lot of the drop from recent days is from this doubt that the as have now introduced, which i want to again make very clear that they, they hi, sit up. there was no hacking, there was no hijacking bend before we go. and i have about 60 seconds for you, you know, present by the national security advisor said monday that cybersecurity and examining the role of crypto currency in cyber attacks must be a priority for nate,

know, and countries in the g 7 meetings in europe next month. this can't be good news for crypto sport is right. yeah, it's not good news. i mean, you got jake sullivan, who absolutely never found a country. he doesn't want to over throw somewhere in the world. and now it's turning his sites towards bitcoin and crypto currency saying that part of the g 7 summit needs to be decisions made by world leaders on how to restrict and control access to big coin and to be able to monitor it. and what chris, he just said is so critically important. so if these private keys that were accessed by the f b, i were not actually being held by the dark side hackers instead, it was being held by the 3rd party exchange like a coin base. that is what the, by the ministration and other governments around the world will want, is to force all crypto currency into these kind of 3rd party exchanges, where they can then access them with a warrant and be able to see funds whenever they want to bad. i think it's going to

be what we hear coming out of the g 7. and that certainly seems to defeat the purpose of a decentralized currently. if you've got it from that, from that around, boom, but co host bend swan and chris the i thank you both for analysis today. thank you and time now for a quick break, but when we come back so called mean stocks continue to serge is retail traders are keeping the trends of live, but are they here to stay? we're going to break it all down. there's going to break here the numbers at the close, the ah, ah the ah,

ah oh, when i was the wrong one all room. just don't the room yet to figure out. the thing becomes the african and engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves will depart, we choose to look for common ground the one of the persian gulf, the wealthiest country, is,

has spent billions of dollars on state of the art stadiums. well, look at this, the stadium is really taking shape. you can see the bowl and most of the stands now, when we were here a little bit over a year ago, at the same construction site, it was just a foundation and a few metal structures. so it seems that time why this idea to use shipping containers as building blocks has definitely paid off. i mean, they're easy to assemble and easy to dismantle, just like playing with lego the, for the 1st time in world history, the stadium will be billed from shipping containers and what's more, it will be completely dismantled after the turn me in

the welcome back with time running out before us president joe biden, the british prime minister boris johnson meet for the g 7 on thursday, british, and american airline bosses, along with other travel industry leaders. took their concerns to the public in an effort to open up travel and remove cove in 1900 flight restrictions between the 2 nations are to correspond size, haven't or has the detail size wondering airline. exactly as expected to happen here. so to give you a little back story, airline officials had a hope that by late may, the us would have lift the travel restrictions on the u. k. but that never happened . and since march of 2020 the u. s. has bar nearly all non us citizen who have been

in the u. k. within the last 14 days from entering the country. and now c e o is from some of the largest trans atlantic airlines are calling on the u. s. and u. k. governments to ease a travel restrictions and reopen travel between the countries that have been closed for almost 16 months. now, because of the pandemic. international travel, as we all know, these fundamental to global economic activity. so safely reinstating trans atlantic servers would send an important signal to the entire world. i think it's the 1st time since we're, we're to, we've had such limited movements. so it's been devastating, but we have a great opportunity to get back in the year and we've had our president biden and prime minister johnson to see the initiative this week. we can set the pace for international travel. you know, 2 countries, you know, prevalence of infection, high vaccination rates, low risk, we've got to go for the ation was the leading industry i think and responding to

cove it and putting in protocols to making say around the world. so sorry, can you break this down for me a little bit more if i'm a u. k citizen, i can't travel to the united states. so this is actually where it gets confusing. so if you're us citizen visiting the u. k, you'll have to show proof of a negative pover test. taken no more than 3 days before you arrive, then you must quarantine for 10 days upon arrival. now, from all those 10 days of their whole holiday, but if you are a british national, you can not enter the u. s. if you've been in the u. k, within the last 14 days. but let's just say you're a british national who lives in. i don't know italy then you can enter the u. s, but you'll need to quarantine for 10 days. if you then go back directly to the okay, from the us. so all of this causes so much confusion that most of food to travel elsewhere or not travel at all. brent and how important is travel between the 2

nations, as far as for the travel industry, that's actually a huge market. you know, i, pre pandemic london, new york was one of the busiest international air corridors in the world. and just in 2019 nearly 4000000 britons traveled to the u. s. while 4500000 visits were made from the us to the u. k. now in 2020 during the panoramic there was a 98 percent drop in the travel between the 2 countries. brent and we mentioned at the end of the segment that the 2 leaders from the 2 countries will be meeting on thursday at the g. 7, are they expected to talk about this? great question. so right now, much to the frustration of travel industry leaders, it is far from certain where the president biden and prime minister johnson will need on wednesday because they are meeting one day before the formal g. 7 meetings will actually go under way. and it's not even certain where they're, they're going to be addressing that construct said air service issue, brent r. oh,

go ahead and then i was going in law, please say there's a lot of stake your lots of money for both governments. so this is going to be something airline executives are really going to be watching closely r t correspondence science avager. thank you so much. and the us securities and exchange commission said monday it is keeping an eye on market volatility as means stocks like amc game stop, continue to trend upward in a statement to multiple news outlets. spokes person for the regulator said fcc staff continues to monitor the market in light of the ongoing volatility in certain stock to determine if there have been any disruptions of the market manipulative trading or other misconduct. in addition, we will act to protect retail investors, if by elation of federal securities laws are found. now over the last month, the game stop has jumped more than $100.00 per nearing the hydro saw in january at

the beginning of the wall street best sa, got amc for its part, is up more than 450 percent over that same period of time and now it appears a retail traders from red, have their eyes set onto new darling's fast food chain, wendy's and medicare insurance start up clover health, both of which i've seen big gains in recent days. so for more at all of this, let's bring in michelle snider, she's the managing director of the market gauge group and author of the best selling book, plant your money tree, a guide to growing your well, michelle, i want to start out with that last point. why wendy's and clover help? what's going on here? well with wendy is it wasn't necessarily a short flow situation or a short squeeze. it was really got the attention of the read a traders because of the term chicken 10 days, which means profit. and so they came in, there was borrow on twitter in terms of the actual stock, and they drove the stock up to new all time highs today, which is just extraordinary. and but really it was more the attraction. and along

with the mean stocks is also this whole vernacular that has come out of trading. these means fox expressions like apes for example, which really means stronger together. so that's what happened with wendy's with with culver. i a little bit more history there because it was a fact, i chan this, it went public, it got red flag by the department of justice. it was under investigation for not disclosing 3rd party and marketing for also doing some kickbacks. and they said they would go fully cooperation with them. and as a result, hedge funds came in short of the stock. and it actually did have a short float of $43.00 and a half percent. so that was a true short squeeze situation that happened today. and that stock also went to new all time highs. and actually the charts look very similar between the 2. so it's, so it's a, it's an interesting situation. what's going on here,

how they pick these stocks like a top and amc. and now the most latest ones, and of course everybody's trying to guess what will be the next new darling's. it's great to hear everybody have to use read it jargon now and in television interviews and everyone else feels like the statement from the fcc was really saying they're watching these read it, or are they? are you actually see anything that says the wall street beth and mean stock movement is actually manipulating the market or doing anything that we haven't seen before? anything that's really outside of security law? no, i am actually looks more spontaneous and uncoordinated, if anything. and basically what the fcc is trying to look into is fraudulent social media posts, and they haven't been able to really find anything at this point. so what so interesting is not only can they not find anything and nothing has come out of it and nothing may never come out of it in terms of volatility, or you're seeing volatility in the actual particular median stocks. but the overall stock market actually has almost historical low volatile it is. we're going through

these last couple of weeks. but what so interesting to me is that what they're doing with the money, some of them is good. like for example, i was reading with diane 40, she did the guerrillas in the midst of the whole thing about $350000.00 of kids. money that came out of this whole, a movement has gone to help support the grilling. and now the same thing was called the taking some of that money, wendy, money, and they're giving it to food for children in the hospitals. so what can the fcc say about that? make money, do good with it. there is nothing fraudulent really going on. and there's an interesting new poll from wells fargo. the basically showed half of teens were actually learning about this and interested in investing because of what they're seeing with the game stop situation. and these mean stock, i have 30 seconds for you. but is that some other good that's coming out of this? absolutely, and this was so different really, if you go back in time and look at,

let's say, when silver was a big school need. lots a, lots of people came in and got attracted to the commodities market at that time. and then you had just a natural division of people who decided to get an education and stick around people who are and how to take profit. and people who just got to greedy and bought silver, let's say all the way on the way down until the hunt brothers came out on the market. and we know that did not and well, and those people went belly up and i think we'll see the change situation here. the good news is the retail investor coming into the market for sure. michelle snyder of the market gauge group. thank you so much. thank you. brett, and that's it for the time you get boom. but on demand on portable tv available on smartphones and tablets, google play in the apple app store and you could also check it out at portable dot tv. we'll see you next time. me . ah

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