joining us now is "new york times" cyber security reporter nicole perlroth who has been covering the ransomware attack on colonial energy and has covered many before this. nicole, it's really nice to see you tonight. thank you so much for making time. >> thanks, rachel. thanks for the great setup. you laid it out pretty clearly there. >> oh, well, i wanted to ask you if i've missed anything either important in terms of context or anything new. i know you've been covering this right through to tonight, you and your colleagues at "the times." >> so we're just learning more about the group that's responsible. we think that they're an offshoot of this other russian group called revealed that has been around a while and was the group responsible for hacking a company called quanta inc. which is a main supplier of apple products. so in addition to holding up quanta, they threatened to release designs for all the latest apple products. and in that case, they're making a ransom demand of something like $50 million, which is one of the highest ransom demands i've ever heard. so we think that d

nicole perlroth, cyber security report for "the new york times," author of the new book "this is how they tell me the world ends: the cyber weapons arms race." nicole, thank you as always for your clarity and tolerance for walking us through some of this more complicated stuff. it's great to have you here. >> thank you so much. last time we spoke it was over the water treatment facility hacks. so hopefully the next time we speak things will have improved a little bit. but i don't have much hope for that. >> yeah, exactly. i don't. things aren't trending in a good direction in terms of the content of these conversations. but thank you, nicole. >>> we've got much more news ahead tonight. do stay with us. i appreciate it. , our bottles are made to be re-made. not all plastic is the same. we're carefully designing our bottles to be one hundred percent recyclable, including the caps. they're collected and separated from other plastics, so they can be turned back into material that we use to make new bottles. that completes the circle, and reduces plastic waste. please help us get every bot

nicole perlroth. author of the book this is how they tell me the world ends. nikole, thank you for your clarity and tolerance on walking us through this more complicated stuff. great to have you here. >> thanks to have you here. last time we talked was over the water treatment facility hack. hopefully things will have improved next time we speak. i don't have much on that. >> yeah, exactly. things aren't trending in a good direction in terms of the content of these conversations. but thank you nikole. much more news ahead, stay with us. i appreciate it. i appreciate it. stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx, crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $439 a month for 36 months. experience amazing, at your lexus dealer. this is our block. $439 a month for 36 months. our place. our people. our block, it's just like yours. full of the people who shaped you. they all deserve care and access to the vaccine. no matter their address, income, or skin color. not having a ride to get the vaccine. can't be the reason you don't get it. you wanna help? do

nicole perlroth is a cybersecurity reporter.mmittee. he also works as an associate counsel for former president george w. bush. both join me now. nikole, could you just give us a little more about who we think did this, when and why? >> >> so we think this is the same grew that pulled off the solar winds attack that were dissecting on federal agencies and companies. we think that they came into a company called constant contact. some people have heard of it if you haven't heard of it it is a competitor of mail chimp. they got into their software to send these emails that appeared to come from usaid, to institutions like the atlantic council, eu decision for grew, both have been very active about calling out russian disinformation and campaigns in some of the pre-election interference that we were seeing. in this case it looks like this is the espy are really going after groups that have been critical of russia, or in some way shape or form, have triggered the higher vladimir putin. >> to me what is striking about the story is th