Zero Days Page #11

this is something

that's significant.

It's impacting

industrial control.

It can disrupt it to the point

where it could cause harm

and not only damage

to the equipment,

but potentially harm

or loss of life.

We were very concerned

because stuxnet

was something that

we had not seen before.

So there wasn't a lot of sleep

that night.

Basically, light up the phones,

call everybody we know,

inform the secretary,

inform the white house,

inform the other departments

and agencies,

wake up the world,

and figure out what's going on

with this particular malware.

Good morning,

chairman lieberman,

ranking member Collins.

Something as simple

and innocuous as this

becomes a challenge

for all of us to maintain

accountability control of our

critical infrastructure systems.

This actually contains

the stuxnet virus.

I've been asked on

a number of occasions,

"did you ever think

this was us?"

And at... at no point did that

ever really cross our mind,

because we were looking at it

from the standpoint of,

is this something that's coming

after the homeland?

You know, what... what's going

to potentially impact,

you know, our industrial control

based here in the United States?

You know, I liken it to,

you know, field of battle.

You don't think the sniper

that's behind you

is gonna be shooting at you,

'cause you expect him to be

on your side.

We really don't know

who the attacker was

in the stuxnet case.

So help us understand

a little more

what this thing is

whose origin and destination

we don't understand.

Gibney:
Did anybody

ever give you any indication

that it was something

that they already knew about?

No, at no time did I get

the impression from someone

that that's okay, you know,

get the little pat on the head,

and... and scooted

out the door.

I never received

a stand-down order.

I never... no one ever asked,

"stop looking at this."

Do we think that this

was a nation-state actor

and that there are a limited

number of nation-states

that have such

advanced capacity?

Gibney:
Sen mcgurk,

the director of cyber

for the department

of homeland security,

testified before the senate

about how he thought

stuxnet was a terrifying threat

to the United States.

Is that not a problem?

I don't... and... and how...

How do you mean?

That stuxnet was a bad idea?

Gibney:
No, no, no, just that

before he knew what it was

- and what it attacks...

- Oh, I... I get it.

- Gibney:
Yeah...

- Yeah,

he was responding

to something that we...

to critical infrastructure

in the United States.

Yeah.

The worm is loose!

Gibney:
The worm is loose.

I understand.

But there's...

There's a further theory

having to do with

whether or not,

following upon David sanger...

I got the subplot,

and who did that?

Was it the Israelis?

And, yeah, I...

I truly don't know,

and even though I don't know,

I still can't talk about it,

all right?

Stuxnet was somebody's

covert action, all right?

And the definition

of covert action

is an activity in which you want

to have the hand

of the actor forever hidden.

So by definition,

it's gonna end up in this

"we don't talk about

these things" box.

Sanger:
To this day,

the United States government

has never acknowledged

conducting any offensive cyber

attack anywhere in the world.

But thanks to Mr. snowden,

we know that in 2012

president Obama issued

an executive order

that laid out

some of the conditions

under which cyber weapons

can be used.

And interestingly,

every use of a cyber weapon

requires presidential

sign-off.

That is only true

in the physical world

for nuclear weapons.

Clarke:
Nuclear war and nuclear

weapons are vastly different

from cyber war

and cyber weapons.

Having said that,

there are some similarities.

And in the early 1960s,

the United States government

suddenly realized

it had thousands

of nuclear weapons,

big ones and little ones,

weapons on jeeps,

weapons on submarines,

and it really didn't have

a doctrine.

It really didn't have

a strategy.

It really didn't have

an understanding

at the policy level about

how he was going to use

all of these things.

And so academics

started publishing

unclassified documents

about nuclear war

and nuclear weapons.

Sanger:
And the result was

more than 20 years,

in the United States,

of very vigorous

national debates

about how we want to go use

nuclear weapons.

And not only did that cause

the congress

and people in the executive

branch in Washington

to think about these things,

it caused the Russians

to think about these things.

And out of that

grew nuclear doctrine,

mutual assured destruction,

all of that complicated set

of nuclear dynamics.

Today, on this vital issue

at least,

we have seen what can be

accomplished

when we pull together.

We can't have that discussion

in a sensible way right now

about cyber war

and cyber weapons

because everything is secret.

And when you get

into a discussion

with people in the government,

people still in the government,

people who have

security clearances,

you run into a brick wall.

Trying to stop Iran

is really the... my number

one job, and I think...

Host:
And let me ask you,

in that context,

about the stuxnet

computer virus potentially...

You can ask,

but I won't comment.

Host:
Can you tell us anything?

No.

What do you think

has had the most impact

on their nuclear

decision-making,

the stuxnet virus?

I can't talk about stuxnet.

I can't even talk about the

operation of Iran centrifuges.

Was the U.S. involved

in any way

in the development

of stuxnet?

It's hard to get into any kind

of comment on that

till we've finished any...

Our examination.

But, sir,

I'm not asking you

if you think another

country was involved.

I'm asking you if

the U.S. was involved.

And we're...

This is not something

that we're gonna be able

to answer at this point.

Look, for the longest time,

i was in fear that

I couldn't actually say

the phrase

"computer network attack."

This stuff is hideously

overclassified,

and it gets into the way

of a...

Of a mature

public discussion

as to what it is

we as a democracy

want our nation to be doing

up here in the cyber domain.

Now, this is a former director

of NSA and CIA

saying this stuff is

overclassified.

One of the reasons this

is highly classified as it is

this is a peculiar

weapons system.

This is a weapons system

that's come out of

the espionage community,

and... and so those people

have a habit of secrecy.

Secrecy is still justifiable

in certain cases

to protect sources or to protect

national security

but when we deal with secrecy,

don't hide behind it

to use as an excuse to not

disclose something properly

that you know should be

or that the American people

need ultimately to see.

Gibney:
While most government

officials refused

to acknowledge the operation,

at least one key insider did

leak parts of the story

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