Eric O'Neill
Appearances
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
It's my pleasure. It's great to be back on the program.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, Iran has been a threat actor against the United States for a long time. They really don't like us. And they made that very obvious, not just by chanting death to America in the streets. Their cyber campaign has been top tier. One of my biggest concerns is their ability to attack U.S. critical infrastructure. Over the past decade, they've been caught in the U.S.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
power grid, launching what's called probe attacks. And in those attacks, a cyber attacker, this is cyber espionage, really, will see how deep they can get within a network that manages the flow and connections of our power. And what they want to do is they want to find a way in. They want to hide there and do what's called maintain persistence.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
And the idea, of course, is if there is any future conflict or they just want to hurt us, they can trigger an attack that could cause some sort of cascade attack.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
They're very aggressive. And you add in North Korea, too, and you've got the big four. Those are the big four countries that are coming after the U.S. with cyber attacks, espionage-related cyber attacks more than any other country. And Iran is up there. I mean, it's the way they can hurt us. It's the only real way they can hurt us.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Well, they don't like Trump. They haven't liked Trump since 2020 when the attack resulted in the successful killing of Qasem Soleimani. They're still angry about that. And look, when a nation state doesn't like a certain political candidate, they get involved in the election and find a way to maybe hurt that person. And they've been going after the Trump campaign since the summer.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Two of the members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were indicted for an attack in August of this year. And they were indicted in September for an attack in August. And now the most recent attack, you know, the most high profile one they're going after all Trump and his associates was the the nominee for the FBI director or something.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
You know, I'm really interested in Kash Patel as Trump's pick for the FBI director. And he was directly targeted in a Iranian cyber attack. And I can promise you we're going to see a lot more of this.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Well, there are a couple of reasons for an intelligence group to launch attacks against a campaign. One is they want to uncover policy decisions. They want to look at communications. And from what we know from the attack on Patel, it looks like they were able to access some of his private communications and get into his data. That could be email. It could be his phone records.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Because they want to know what the future FBI director is going to do, you know, against the Iranian threat here on our soil or in cyberspace. That's very helpful to any country who is in conflict with us. You know, they also probably want to create disinformation campaigns, you know, encourage Americans to lose faith in the Trump campaign and, you know, in the future presidency.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
That's right around the corner, starting right around the corner. And, you know, Russia does this, China does this, and Iran also plays in the same game.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Every single campaign, every four years, and even in the two-year congressional campaign seasons, there is an alert by the FBI and CIA and others saying that there are attacks that are coming. be prepared, be ready, upgrade your cybersecurity. But these attacks always are successful in one shape or form. I'm not surprised.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
I wish I could say I was surprised, but some of these attacks are insidious and they're very hard to defend against. Yes, we should see them coming, I don't blame him for being breached. Now, it is a little embarrassing. And, you know, there's a feather in the cap for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, their cyber attack group, to say that we got the potential future director of the FBI.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
I am worried about what data they did steal because they could use it to embarrass him or undermine him if he does take the seat as the director in the Hoover building. But I think we need to do better. We need to do better across not only government and future government, but all industries and defending against a very persistent and current threat in nation state cyber attacks.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
It should be better and they need to do better. And every four years we have to do better. I'm just, every four years we don't. And so that's why I'm not surprised.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, the Bureau has a group called the IC3, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, but it is also a threat researcher. They do an enormous amount of outreach about potential attacks, attacks you need to prepare for. They will even give hashes or information about the specific malware that is upcoming and how to defend against it. There are all sorts of resources.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
And there is very good communication between government and corporations and cybersecurity companies about the threats. Obviously, government, we have the FBI and the NSA and the CIA are able to see a lot of this before it hits the streets. And the faster that can be rolled out for the threat hunters, for the cybersecurity professionals, the better.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
So it is out there and the FBI does do a pretty good job of getting the notice out. I know all the campaigns are warned. that the threat is coming. I think that Trump campaign has been told by a bunch of different groups, including Microsoft and other big tech companies saying that they have stopped massive amounts of phishing attempts against their personal accounts and their business accounts.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
I mean, they know that Iran is coming too because they can see where the attacks are coming from.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Well, it's pretty insidious. Like I said, the big four have been attacking U.S. critical infrastructure, lodging what's called probe attacks, where they want to get in and be able to just lurk there. You know, the technical term is maintain persistence. Because any kind of future war or conflict is primarily in the West going to be fought in cyber.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
It's going to be denying the things that we need and love to be happy as humans. You know, our power, our gas, our water. Look, we got to talk about what we just learned about, which has been this progressing story right now. And this goes back to Chinese espionage, an attack group called Salt Typhoon that apparently for the last year or two has been lurking in at least eight U.S.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
telecom providers. So that's your phone in your pocket. It's quite possible that as you made a call or sent a text, Chinese spies have been reading it. And in fact, even though we know about it, and now we know that they've been there for a year or two, the U.S. can't kick them out.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
They're using part of the telecom infrastructure that allows government agencies like the FBI to use backdoors when they have warrants to get phone information. They're able to exploit that using different methods and cyber attacks. and get in and steal some of this information. So they're linked to Chinese government.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
They're Chinese government spies, and they're stealing information from telecom networks. They've stolen plenty of data, and they're going to use it for espionage and potentially downstream disruptive purposes. You know, if there's a crisis or a conflict, they can use this information.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Right. Well, I don't think it's we can't legally buy like U.S. companies can't legally buy certain Chinese, you know, telecom or communications hardware. And they shouldn't be buying a lot of it. And I didn't see that. We don't know the exact way that they got in, but we do know that they got in. And what's been revealed right now is they leverage known security flaws in telecom networks.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Now, how do they do it? They probably used a combination of attacking employees. You can do that through spear phishing. You can attack unpatched flaws. It's quite possible that there is some technology that China has gotten into the network. I mean, these are massive infrastructure networks. You know, China has been known to put chips and routers that are built in China and the U.S.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
uses, and now you've got a spy living in your home because you bought that brand of router.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yes, well, be shocked because this is espionage. This is the bread and butter of espionage to get a list of advice to compromise. Exactly. And this is a masterclass.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, you're very welcome at any time. I love the show.