MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Mark Warner
Interview
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SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Thank you, Rachel.
MADDOW: I look at the overall picture of what happened with that pipeline, and I think, we lost and they won. The disruption to us was profound. They got paid. They got away with it as far as we can tell, but I know I don`t have the visibility into the situation that you do.
How do you see it?
WARNER: Well, maybe worse than you see it. You know, I have been talking about this for years, getting no traction. The number of ransomware attacks that go on every day that people often pay in crypto currencies like bitcoin, could stun most of your audience. And while in this case, Colonial Pipeline did the right thing, they notified government, they notified law enforcement, they were under no obligation to do this.
And the remarkable thing is, you know, this was one ransomware attack that shut down a third of the nation`s gasoline against one company. Probably the bad guys -- let`s assume the president`s right, there was no Russian government involvement, but the Russian spy services were definitely watching this, watching this.
So let`s think back a couple months ago. Some of your audience probably remember something called the SolarWinds attack. That attack, which was the Russian government, penetrated 18,000 companies.
Luckily, the Russian spies only took out information. They didn`t shut down those 18,000 companies. They could have done the same kind of thing in terms of a ransomware attack that attacked Colonial Pipeline. That would have brought our whole economy to a halt.
And we don`t even have a requirement at this point that says if you`re attacked, even if you`re a government agency, you have got tell the FBI, the cybersecurity administration, CISA, and we cannot solve this just with the government. We need Microsoft, Amazon, we need the cybersecurity companies all collocated so mid incident we can get this information and try to respond, because the awful secret is, in a world of cyber, a good bad guy, talented, not good -- a talented bad guy can, you know, one time out of 1,000 break through the barriers of most companies.
And we saw that -- the ramifications of that with Colonial over the last five days. Think about that when the Russian spies were in 18,000 companies for six months and most of us in the government didn`t realize that.
MADDOW: When the president today said that the U.S. government is taking action to disrupt the operation of these people who carried out this attack, how should we understand what that means?
WARNER: We have offensive capability capabilities as well. We`ve got to be willing to punch back against our adversaries. We cannot, whether it`s the Russians or Chinese, allow them to steal our intellectual property, basically hold hostage companies for ransomware or, in the case of SolarWinds, actual trade information about individuals.
And at times when you`ve got companies that are negligent like Equifax was, with 140 million Americans` personal information that the Chinese stole, and there was no repercussions, we need to hold some people accountable, but in the interim, we also need to make sure there was at least a -- you know, when the fire is burning, you got to report it to the firemen, and you`ve got to then pulse the whole network the make sure there`s not other fires out there.
This appears to have just been a case of hack against one pipeline. I think back again to the SolarWinds hack -- 18,000 companies. You know, luckily, it was only an espionage mission. It had had been a ransomware attack, we could have -- you know, it could have shut down part of the economy. And people say, that may never happen here.
The only way to look at what Russia did to Ukraine, repeatedly, they shut down the Ukrainian economy or turned off all the power right before Christmas in Ukraine. Think about that happening all across America. We can do a better job. We have the capabilities both offensively and we can increase our defense, but we also need to make sure this information is at least shared in a public private way.
You know, the government can`t do it alone. The private sector can`t do it alone. We need to equivalent of an incident reporting mission, and this is one area, Rachel -- I heard it earlier about the bridges, and I`m with you, we need to fix that. We need to deal with our infrastructure in major, once in a generation way.
But on this, there is bipartisan support, and we need to put a new legal legislative response to build upon President Biden`s executive order he put out yesterday.
MADDOW: Virginia Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- you have absolutely been sounding this alarm for a very long time. I feel like even in the coverage of this Colonial Pipeline attack, it`s almost being covered like it`s a natural disaster of some sort of accident. It is in fact an attack, and there`s a lot of complexity to what`s warranted in response.
Sir, thanks for helping us understand it. I really appreciate you making time to be here tonight.
WARNER: Well, Rachel, I just say, just as we can fix our bridges, we can also do a better job on our cybersecurity. And we ought to commit ourselves in this United States. We can do it better. So, thanks so much.
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