Analyzing the Brussels attacks and the next counter terrorism efforts in the U.S. and Europe; what you need to know to avoid ransomware; discussing the nationwide problem of lead contaminated drinking water and the positive side effects of swearing.
What we know about the Brussels terror attacks
At least 31 people are confirmed dead and scores more wounded after bombs exploded at the Brussels airport and city subway station shortly before 8 am this morning.
From a posting on their news agency Amaq, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks.
The post also indicated that the attack was carried out in response to Belgium’s support of the international coalition formed against the group. Belgium is currently on lockdown after Prime Minister Charles Michel instructed citizens to “avoid all movement,” diverting planes and trains as the country raised its terror alert to the highest level. At least one of the two explosions that occurred at the airport has been blamed on a suicide bomber.
The Obama administration has pledged to “do whatever is necessary” to assist Belgian authorities to bring justice to those responsible. Airports across Europe and the US have tightened security measures.
Prime Minister Michel stated that there is no immediate evidence linking today’s attacks to Salah Abdeslam, the primary suspect arrested in Belgium last Friday for his involvement in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that claimed the lives of 130 people.
Guests:
Caroline Connan, Bloomberg TV Correspondent joining us from Brussels; she tweets from
Adam Schiff, Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Select Committee on Benghazi. He represents California’s 28th district, stretching from West Hollywood to the eastern border of Pasadena
Counter terrorism responses following Brussels
Responses from all over the world have been pouring in after the terrorist attacks that shook the Belgian capital of Brussels today.
U.S. presidential candidates have weighed in with some taking the opportunity to criticize President Obama’s foreign policy and national security and others saying that the attacks would only succeed in uniting the rest of the world against violence and terror.
Still, in the wake of these kind of attacks, many want more than just a promise to solve the problem and a pledge to devote resources to doing so.
How should the U.S. respond to these attacks?
Guests:
William Wechsler, senior fellow for counterterrorism and special operations at the Center for American Progress and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism
Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (currently in Switzerland). She tweets
Glen Winn, an expert in aviation safety and security and an instructor with the Aviation Safety and Security Program at USC
8 things you need to know about ransomware
While opening emails or browsing the web, users face an increasingly dangerous type of cyber-attack: ransomware. That's when hackers encrypt your information and hold it hostage until you pay a ransom.
Ransomware isn't new but these kind of attacks are becoming more aggressive and more popular. A new report predicts that ransomware attacks will continue to spread in 2016.
Some victims have no other choice but to pay thousands of dollars to get their files back. It happened to a Massachusetts police department, an Oregon church, South Carolina schools and, in February, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, which shelled out $17,000 after hackers shut down the hospital. Two more California hospitals were just attacked in the same way. And those are just the cases we know about.
With aging anti-virus software and law enforcement agencies that often lack the technological prowess to defeat hackers, the best thing you can do is educate yourself.
1. What is a ransomware attack?
A ransomware attack begins by encrypting all of the files on a machine — or an entire network — and deleting the originals and backups.
2. How does it start?
Attacks can come via an email attachment or by browsing on an infected website. “Unless you get the encryption key from the criminals, you will not be able to access your data anymore,” says Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
3. How common is it?
More common than you think. “This is actually happening very routinely, most organizations just don’t come clean with the public about the fact that they’re paying ransom to get their data back,” says Alperovitch.
4. Who has the highest risk?
According to a 2016 report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, criminals target those most likely to pay. Aside from individual users that means hospitals, religious organizations, small law enforcement agencies and schools.
5. Your bad habits are stinking up your system
James Scott, co-founder of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, says “lackadaisical cyber hygiene” makes users vulnerable to ransomware attacks. He urges companies and organizations to invest in “security-centric” systems. “You can’t really stop a breach from happening, but you can detect and respond,” Scott said. “It really comes down to bringing in an information security team outside of your IT guy.” He recommends having policies put in place by security experts who can train staff to avoid clicking on faulty links and suspicious emails.
6. Old defenses won't keep your laptop safe
“A lot of the legacy technologies that you might use like antivirus, will actually not stop this threat because it changes. Every single file you get is essentially unique so you really need to look at next generation security technologies that can run on your system,” Alperovitch says. Next generation security comes in many forms. Scott recommends a layered approach: white-list firewalls, intrusion-detection and prevention systems, User Behavioral Analytic systems are a good start.
7. These criminals aren’t lone wolves
It’s easy to imagine a single hacker getting rich from his or her basement, while designing rasomware to plague the masses. In reality these attacks are being carried out by organized criminal networks, many of which operate out of Eastern Europe and Russia. “This is big business for them,” Alperovitch said. “They’re becoming very, very effective at this.” Alperovitch has seen some organizations’ information held for upward of $100,000.
8. There's not much law enforcement can do
Since many of the organizations spreading ransomware are based in foreign countries, U.S. law enforcement have trouble bringing them to justice. “A lot of times, law enforcement is actually aware of who these people are, but they can’t bring them to justice because they’re in a country, like Russia, that won’t extradite them,” Alperovitch says. Bitcoin exchanges are also completely anonymous, which makes tracing these transactions nearly impossible.
Guests:
James Scott, Co-founder and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a cyber security think tank that published “The ICIT Ransomware Report: 2016 Will Be the Year Ransomware Holds America Hostage”
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and former Vice President of Threat Research at the security software company McAfee
High stakes Riverside hearing postponed as FBI tests hacking San Bernardino iPhone
At the proverbial eleventh hour yesterday, federal prosecutors asked a Riverside judge to postpone today’s hearing pitting the federal government against Apple Inc. due to a new hack that might unlock a San Bernardino attacker's iPhone without Apple's help.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice says an outside party showed the FBI a new method. Apple says it has no idea what that is. Apple and federal attorneys were set to argue in court today about whether developers should be ordered to write software that could unlock the iPhone. The DOJ must report back in two weeks on its progress.
Technology experts have been arguing over possible hacks to extract data and/or crack the phone’s passcode.
If the hack does not work, the hotly disputed court case could end up at the Supreme Court and set a precedent with broad implications for national security and the reach of law enforcement, as well as the privacy of troves of personal information kept on digital devices.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Joel Rubin, Reporter covering federal courts for the Los Angeles Times
Kim Zetter , Senior staff writer, "Wired"; Author, "Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon"
It's not just Flint, lead in drinking water is a nationwide problem
The water crisis in Flint has brought an intense amount of scrutiny on lead and other contaminants in the nation's water supplies. And one Southern California city is finding itself caught up in the controversy.
An USA Today investigation looking at how widespread the problem of lead contaminated water is in the country published last week has found excessive levels of lead in close to 2000 water systems in all 50 states. One of them, the paper cited, belongs to Monterey Park, which is said to have had a lead level 1,700 percent over the allowable threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The San Gabriel Valley city of 60,000-plus residents is disputing the claim. The city’s Water Utility Manager Frank Heldman has provided AirTalk with results from a lead test the city conducted in 2015 showing a level well below the 15 ppb cutoff.
The California Water Resources Control Board, the state agency that regulates water rights and quality, is backing Monterey Park's claim, stating that the city has had no lead level exceedances between 2000 to 2015. The data concerning Monterey Park that USA Today had obtained from the EPA was wrong to begin with, the agency tells AirTalk, due to a “data entry error”.
The incident exposes a pitfall of data driven story: that an analysis is only as solid as the raw data it is built on. In its report, USA Today has said that about 5 percent of water system records it obtained contain errors.
How does a city like Monterey Park test for lead and other contaminants in its water? How widespread is lead contamination in the nation’s water supplies?
Guests:
Richard G. Luthy, a water expert and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University
Frank Heldman, City of Monterey Park's Water Utility Manager
Why swearing may not be as bad as you think
Many of us were taught as children that using profanities is a bad thing. A foul mouth gives off the impression of rudeness or low intelligence.
But as a recent article in BBC’s Future reports, swearing has some surprisingly positive effects from increasing a person’s tolerance to pain to raising feelings of solidarity among team members.
Evidence suggests that the brain area activated by swear words, is separate from the cortex and left hemisphere, the parts of the brain which handles most language, which may explain some of these unexpected benefits.
Guests:
Tiffanie Wen, Freelance Contributor for the BBC in Tel Aviv;
Richard Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Keele University in the United Kingdom and author of the book “Black Sheep: The Hidden Benefits of Being Bad.” In 2010, he won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize for his research confirming that swearing relieves pain