Good evening everyone Frank. Thank you again for attending. It's great to spend a few minutes You've been a busy guy since you flew back east here. We've seen your number of times on the air getting their money Yeah, they are and stretching it a little further. It sounds like As Joe said, we've got quite a topic to cover tonight seeking security in an unstable world So I think we'll start at a broad level and kind of drill into the topic a little bit more as Our talk goes on so first question. I'd like to ask is so are we living in an unstable world? You know, if so is it more unstable or less secure than normal? Good question because it's always helpful to put things in perspective. We tend to think we're living in unique times and We're probably not there are some aspects of uniqueness to what it's going what we're going through right now But if you look at the traditional criteria by which you measure instability trust in institutions a feeling of privacy a feeling that you're safe a Feeling that allies out there have your back in the world If we look at those there's some disturbing signals that seem to indicate that we are in an increasingly unstable environment both geopolitically globally and at home. So what are some of those? Criteria or what are some of the signals? We're seeing first on a global scale What we're seeing with our allied relationships is a transformation where our allies are Doing things on a very unilateral Transactional basis there. It's kind of an every man for yourself aspect to World relations very transactional. We're seeing also a A nationalism that's rising amongst the world and again you might say well that you're talking about the United States No, I there's a rise in Nationalistic fervor across the globe and it didn't start with the United States and an example of that movement Of course would be the the great battle over brexit that's occurring in the UK right now So there's this inward-looking movement Fueled by a lot of different factors one of which is the global refugee crisis where people around the world are feeling Threatened and inundated by that which is foreign to them right and not necessarily dealing with it very well We've got other criteria from a national security and intelligence perspective that tells us we should be worried the recent report from the Director of National Intelligence tells us that more than any time in the last 50 years China and Russia are collaborating together to work against us That got my attention as someone who spent 25 years In counterintelligence for that to be said we were always during my career We were always keenly attuned to any sign that China and Russia were training together that their officers Intelligence operatives were training together and now and it was rare, but it happened now. We're hearing from our DNI More than any time in 50 years our enemies are working together So what did we just talk about our allies are moving away and working independently from us our Enemies are collaborating together against that against us so that concerns me then move toward Personal things right we're we're feeling a sense of insecurity with our own institutions our electoral process Right, we don't seem to trust our information and where we're getting it from anymore and perhaps with valid cause So when you look at all of those factors, I would answer the question. Yes We're living in an unstable world and it's more unstable and less secure than it's been in recent years you and I had talked recently about the Inward focus that we're seeing here in the United States as well kind of this hunkering down and focusing on on Things here inside America first her example Talk to us a little bit about maybe the Short versus long-term implications of that type of approach with respect to this Yeah, so so again again other nations are having this inward approach as well But we've had gone through an election process recently where people bought off on the concept Understandably of America first time to take care of ourselves time to worry less about our ability to be global Influencers, right? We've got that understood There's a downside to that which is We are losing our ability to influence decision-making on a global level And you think well you just said all of our allies are are doing their own thing, too So what's the problem? The problem is we better keep one eye on Those people who could hurt us our adversaries and you know, it's it's become even uncomfortable In recent times to talk about nations as adversaries But I make no apology for it I worked 25 years getting up every day and going to war against countries who were trying to hurt us So while we're worried about looking inward and taking care of ourselves I also recommend that we go in with eyes open keep an eye on China Russia Iran and other nations that get up every day Trying to think is this the window we could seize while they're looking inward To perhaps get into a dominating position in the world Good. Thank you. So let's let's drill down a little bit more So these concerns that you just listed how might those relate to those of us? Sitting here in the room or impact us in our workplace. Yeah Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about our jobs and where we go to work and what we do every day on a corporate level We're seeing even Companies Rethinking what it is to be an American company. We see companies Getting pressured as to how many jobs they've left in the United States How many jobs are moving back to the United States what it means to be an American company? And so it's a healthy discussion. I think that needs to happen, but there's some interesting side effects of this Which is a company needs to make a profit, right? And we all need to have jobs and jobs security So on this topic and theme of insecurity, right?  Where are we going to manufacture this product? Where is it going? And are we going to get called out kind of name it and shame it from Washington? Because we've moved that process offshore when really the bottom line dictates that you move it offshore But now there's this tension that's existing Between doing the right thing for profit doing the right thing as a corporate citizen And I think that's going to get even more pressurized in times to come You know and workplace concerns about whether we have a job Coming up. Look, we we see a disenfranchised workplace being outsourced Robots taking place. We we saw the impact that had on the on the presidential election people feeling very disenfranchised and very Insecure and if we don't address those issues We'll see the same thing Repeat itself and then and then we have we have bad actors trying to take the stuff that makes your company tick I've seen it over and over again your intellectual property your trade secrets are being targeted not only by Nation-state sponsors, you don't have to get into a Tom Clancy novel. It's your competitor It's your hacker in the Ukraine that that could Literally pose an existential threat to your company or business and you might say well, I work in a bakery We don't have intellectual property. Oh, oh, I disagree. You do you have recipes that make your product unique And I don't see enough people thinking about protecting their future job Good How do you see the instability and risk reflected in institutions of higher living? There's obvious or higher learning. There's obviously a big Fairfield connection here as a CIO at Fairfield This this resonates really with me. What do we do? Look university issues have been in the news Tremendously this week. We've had a national scandal on admissions and corruption in the admissions process, right I see that as Interesting from a couple of perspective perspectives first Back to this feeling of insecurity, right? Some of the most reputable institutions in our country yell Stamford right people universities. We really have Engreaned into our society and our and our culture and history now are being tainted harshly by Bad apples who have corrupted the system the other thing is so it's a further erosion of our trust in the system and our institutions secondly We're back into this question of the haves and the have-nots and the issue of wealth and disparity in wealth which is all that it seems to indicate is increasing and the middle class is Shrinking and most of us in this room grow up somewhere in the middle class I know that I did and the notion that you could get to be whatever you wanted to be if you simply Applied yourself and worked hard has been smashed over the years But smashed particularly in the last couple of weeks with the notion that no someone else is taking your seat at that hallowed University because their parents paid half a million dollars to get you on the crew team But you've never rode in your life And so this is this is a theme this goes beyond just this college scandal You're going to see this theme of corruption and wealth disparity Played out over the election cycle as we approach the 2020 Presidential election people are hot on this topic and upset about it and understandably so Let's talk a little bit more about the data that lives inside these institutions of higher ed. You know we We have to protect data and much of the data that we are entrusted to protect is data of the people that are in this room as an alum Your grades your transcript your records those types of things so that's incumbent upon us to keep those secure but Within higher ed. There's there's this free and open feeling too that you know I've got a share and this collaboration concept between higher eds is one of the things that makes it really great, but It's at odds with each other. So let's let's talk a little bit more about that Yeah, data security the securing of ideas of intellectual ideas and and the tension between that and the free and open exchange of scientific ideas and discussion that needs to take place in any academic setting There is such a gap between the security of what goes on on a university campus And that free and openness that has to happen that I am here to tell you that our adversaries are exploiting that gap And hurting us every day and I can name case after case duke university case In particular the chinese government planted a graduate student in the research program They wanted very badly To get invisibility research that duke was doing an invisibility cloak They got it They got it. They got it because it wasn't locked down They got it because most of our graduate student researchers at that level are into shared folders Folders at default to public the free and open exchange at every university this and Do you know what it is you're protecting right you've got you've got the siso in the room You've got a cio in the room two of the most High-pressure jobs behind the scenes high-pressure jobs because rest assured if a if a hemorrhage occurs a data loss occurs Right suddenly you're front and center. Please explain what happened. How do we let this happen, right? But I I go back to a more basic question is What are you protecting ask this of your job that you know, what are you protecting? What is it that makes you tick that can't walk out the door? Maybe it's that admissions process Maybe it's that research going on in engineering that you guys no one else is doing it or doing it that way Who wants it? Understand the threat. I call it the journalism 101 questions. What are you protecting? Where is it located both physically and in your servers and network and who needs access to it truly? Needs access to it every day if you answer those questions You're on the track to starting to protect what you do In the university setting but the use of human sources graduate students who are between I can't tell you how many in my FBI career how many Chinese you know, it seems like we're picking on the Chinese but Chinese grad students I interviewed who are truly between a rock and a hard place They are allowed to come here By their government. It is a privilege and an honor They've got family back home With that privilege and honor comes a state law in China that mandates cooperation with the intelligence service if you're asked to cooperate You can't say no And you've got mom and dad and grandpa and grandma back home So the discussions I have with them is they acknowledge that, you know, it's not accusatory It's not, you know, that doesn't help you to go in and saying you're you're a spy, but rather How can I help you out of this mess? Tell me what you're up against, right? Um, but universities see see the dollar signs This person's paying a full ride. We we need to have this diversity. I can't and the contribution intellectually is vast Um, thank god for our foreign student population contributing tremendously to the cutting-edge research that's going on But I just I just warned university University leadership to understand what must be protected Understand what acceptable risk is and make sure you're not so open that you're literally shutting down your program without realizing Good advice. Thank you Does global and national risk and instability reach into our homes and personal lives? Well, so we've worked our way. This is some discussion. We've worked our way from geopolitics And uh, and oh, we well, we forgot about terrorism. We haven't even talked about terrorism There's good by the way before we get so we'll get personal in a second, but Good news and bad news on the terrorism front, you know and on the security issue There has been tremendous progress in taking out the central core leadership of isis No question about it They're in disarray. So that's the good news The bad news is we've made this now into a decentralized model Where people are more than ever before being radicalized online And and the speed with which you you go to your first site and get preached a radical sermon To which you then act out violently is actually being compressed It is faster than ever before and we're seeing people radicalized to violence in 19 days online Right. It's getting more and more rapid. So yes, congratulations We are we are beheading the leadership of isis and taking the head off the snake The snake has many tentacles and now it's an online radicalization process And it's very hard for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to see what's happening in that regard. Okay So maybe that is a decent segue to talk about the personal insecurity. Why because it's an online segue, right? Talked about what we're seeing and filtering or not online So personal insecurity and how it impacts us You go home every day and I was just speaking to uh, some folks earlier I've installed it now this I've downloaded this app that tells me how much time I've spent on my devices Every day and I'm I'm both glad that I did it and I'm I'm not glad that I did it because it's way too much time Right and I I rationalize if I say, well, I'm in the communication business. I I talk on tv I've got to watch all of this. I got to keep up with the news We're spending way too much time online and what's the problem with that We we could talk for hours about that but back to the erosion of trust and the feeling of insecurity We can no longer trust what we see on our laptop screens every night when we when we fire up facebook twitter wherever we're going The it's the special counsel investigation in washington if it's done nothing else it's opened our eyes to the fact that We've indicted over Two dozen russians including 12 russian gru intelligence officers by name For messing with our election. How did they do that? social media propaganda hacking Computers right so literally we almost had a race riot in downtown houston started by the russians. Are you aware of that story?   I don't know where that ad is coming from or that post is coming from This is not going away. This information warfare is the new battleground For us And i'm telling you it's going to be more important than ever before for us to become more intelligent consumers Of information and what we see Because rest assured facebook's not doing enough right and they're pointing at the government the most recent statement from zuckerberg The government we need regulation who thought he would have said that? Yeah, we need more regulation.  Yeah, I want the government to regulate. What's the government saying? We don't know if we want to regulate facebook and online content. What that's scary You know, so it's you've got to do it We've got to do it. Don't believe half of what you see Online and the half that you think is true go out and verify it Get your news from at least three sources And here's a guy that appears on tv turn off the tv once in a while And read Read your news deeply into articles that probe topics, right and force yourself to watch some other network I do I make myself watch all the network Sometimes I can only take 30 minutes and that's it But I you got to do it because you're going to get that other perspective It's an ongoing discussion in our house Flip on the channel with the channel. Yeah. Yeah, and even look you want to get really personal on on this feeling of Insecurity and nothing to be trusted The data now is like 35 percent of all new dating relationships start online Okay I'm here to tell you from someone who's looked at the dark side of life from both the fbi and Corporate security that that's a place where people are portraying themselves as they wish they were Not as they actually are Right, so what law enforcement is telling us and what my own private security risk management business is seeing Is a huge increase in investigations and cases around Who you're meeting online And should we be answering all those phone calls that we're getting to our cell phones too? That's another app. I just downloaded which was no more robo. I'm not here to advertise any particular app, but But it's intriguing the data shows us That by next year 40 percent of every time your cell phone rings will be a scam or a robo call I'm already there, which is why I downloaded this app. It's minimized the hassle some but not entirely and There seems to be no insight and as we approach the 2020 election Your phone's going to ring off the hook with people telling you probably untrue things about each of the candidates So don't answer I think it's probably safe to say that many if not all of us in this room Have been impacted by some sort of credit card or data breach from a bank or or those sorts of things Um Is there a point where we might become numb to this or just kind of throw up our hands and say It's going to happen and it has happened multiple times. I know you and I are talking we've shared how many Notification breach notification letters we've each received. It's this this gets really personal and And you're right. The danger here is that we're becoming numb to this this gets to the issue of privacy, right? So so let's talk about what our online platforms are doing and then this loss of privacy that occurs even through our personal data It's come out through investigation now and admissions that facebook and others have been selling our personal debt, right and and your direct messaging And the photos you post and your shopping inclinations all going to marketing firms and research firms All right got that now couple that with the fact that I've lost track of how many times I've been notified That my personal data has been breached it started You know with in the fbi with the the infamous opm office of personal management breach who did that China china took the records of all background investigations and re-investigations Of federal employees, all right, you know what's in those files Personal stuff and social security numbers, of course and then target You know you've been breached and then the hotel industry you've been breached And by the way most of those going back to all of them that we're talking about going back to foreign powers for the most part So what does it do to us? We give up We give up privacy Privacy may become a non-existent Concept I mean even look at the president Who uses his personal phone to conduct government business? It's essentially now. I'm not I can't get his head and I don't know what his motivation is, but it's essentially I give up they've got it anyway, and I've dealt with this and with corporate leaders as well in my security business We're going to you know, we're going to have a board meeting in china. Can we secure it? Why bother they've got it anyway They'll take it anyway can't be secured What about your are you taking a loaner device to china on your business trip? That's loaded only with what you need for that trip Why bother they'll get it anyway This is the danger we are becoming numb and the concept of privacy is not only shifting But because if you asked me to define privacy today, I'm not sure we we could come up with an adequate definition It may go away So what are we seeing inside our own governments with respect to all these security issues? All right, government. This is the topic near and dear to my heart. I spent 25 years with the department of justice and the FBI and our institutions are being questioned like never before and I I'm a believer in questioning authority. I think it's healthy For us to question how an agency operates whether or not there are corrupt individuals inside an agency absolutely What I worry about is that the constant barrage of attack From on high Is further, you know back to the same of insecurity instability is further causing us to question the very institutions That we rely on for our democracy the rule of law Right our constitution our intelligence agencies to protect us We're all beginning to say I don't know if I can trust them. Who's right? Who's wrong? Why why are intelligence briefings not being read? What why is intelligence being ignored? Are there bad people in high places and who are they? Are there any good people left in high places? We're all questioning no matter what side of the aisle you're on We're all beginning to wonder Who's who's right and who's wrong? So the damage to our institutions Is I can't emphasize enough maybe the worst thing that comes out of this particular period in our history And I hope That we can recover The other thing I worry about tremendously on a government level just very practically is I'm not seeing enough done To protect the next election cycle Um, I'm seeing a lot of talk about it but We're going to come up on an election where We can't afford to have people questioning the results. We just can't And I'm not seeing the government expend the resources energy and money Needed to protect it. So, you know, you might say well, there's no evidence that You know, anyone could actually on a major level change the outcome of an election And I what I say is It's some interesting red team testing on this which Which is contrary to that notion But I also say this it doesn't need to get Complicated and sophisticated think about this scenario you go to your usual election place in your town.  They say well, I've been here. I voted here 10 years in a row. No No, your place is across the city other side of town Imagine that happening right not even getting into the voting machine. No hacking of the voting machine This is your registrar voters in town hall being hacked Now imagine that happening in key precincts in key swing states And you've got people going I couldn't vote. I'm not driving across town or I did not exist And you've got a problem on your hands without ever touching the the voting electronic voting process So, you know, we there are things we can do about this, but we'll we'll talk about it. Is paper ballots the answer? Well I gotta fix the hanging chat issue first, right? Well, yeah, look at what happened with that. Why is it always Florida? Yeah I am a big fan of paper ballots, but I'd be a bigger fan of standalone systems Even at the town hall registrar voters level. That's where I get really concerned Um, and I'd be a big fan of of the administration coming out and saying we're going to fix this because Again, this is a non-partisan issue. Understand that the people who will do this to us and have done this to us They're not necessarily about backing your candidate They're about creating chaos In our system. So what I keep telling people We say, oh, this is uh, this is just a democrat issue You know, you're upset because the russians helped the republican now. I said, well next time It's not it's not going to be your candidate. They just want to screw with us So, you know, don't don't think it's not going to happen to your party because it will so in the context of All these issues that that come up awareness of of the issue is certainly something that that's important to To all of us to consider so so what can we do to become more aware of and responsive to these risks and threats that we're faced with I mentioned earlier the the real need for us to be more intelligent consumers of everything It's no longer appropriate to rely on Facebook or the government or someone else to think they've got your back You got to step up and speak out. So what does that look like on a practical level? We've got to engage At a local and state level more than ever before I'm convinced that local and state government is where The most is going to happen Um, and I'll you could you confer from that whatever you wish about what I think about the ineffectiveness of washington, but We need to volunteer raise our hand run for office sit on the city council the school board Do something Do something the bright people and creative people in this room I don't care what party you belong to You guys and gals should be running For office and running things and making a difference. That's that's number one Um, number two, we already talked about getting your news from many sources Educating your family and friends about hey check this thing out. Watch this documentary. Have you thought about this? I'm reading this. What are you reading that kind of discussion? Needs to take place demand with regard to the election demand answers from your State secretary of state Right your town registrar or voters your elected officials your state reps your members of congress. What asked the question? Are we getting money from the department of homeland security to secure our election? Some states are rejecting the money I don't know what that means What have we done at the local level to protect our polling place data and our registration data? Are you confident? Ask your state legislator. Are you confident? Ask your congressmember that no one can disrupt this election process at any level See what they say see if they're blowing smoke at you and uh and demanding you need get more money out of dhs To protect your uh your elections here So there's a good news bad news twist to this situation too, right? So instability and ambiguity is the new norm. So that's the bad news But what's the good news side of this situation? Yeah, this is this has been kind of a gloom and doom discussion so far So there is there is some good news. Um, yes, I think we're unstable and yes Um, I think ambiguity is the new norm Um, but here's here's what I do. I I look at I remind people Of a couple of things one is our nation this gets back to everybody It's kind of human nature to think what i'm going through right now the crisis that i'm that we're in right now is unlike any other in history Oh my god, the sky is falling But if you if you're if you study history We've we've done this we've had these issues not the same ones But we've lived through a civil war as a nation, right?  We've had a president assassinated Um, we've had a president. We've had presidents impeached resigned from office, right? So just take a breath Take a breath, right and then do what scientists do america Is a great experiment, right? We're an experiment. We're pretty short lived so far right a couple hundred years of this experiment and do what scientists do When they see i do an experiment and they don't like what they're seeing they don't walk away from the experiment Oh, we're done experiment didn't work They adhere to sound scientific research principles if you stick to those You'll come out with a decent experiment We need to do the same thing and stick to our sound democracy principles We need to say we believe in our institutions and our constitution and the rule of law It's got us this far Let's not abandon it or question it out of existence because just like the scientist who says i'm sticking with sound scientific method on this experiment Let's do the same thing with our democracy and i say if we do that if the american people have the will to do that and defend institutions and processes I think we'll come out okay. We may even come out stronger for having been tested You know, it's interesting when we first started talking about this evening I think it was a few months ago back in february. We said well, let's let's see how things evolve I'm going to refresh my browser right now and see what the the next headline is so we'll come up with a new question Obviously there were some events this week the last couple days with respect to physical security The human element somebody getting in somewhere that they maybe shouldn't have been Let's talk a little bit about what's going on there and potential impacts and maybe the long-term implication of that situation well, we did see this week A great example of insecurity physical insecurity, but with a cyber nexus clearly So in case you you actually if you've been adhering to my advice and turning off your tv You may not have heard That a woman got into mara lago the president's weekend residence And she had among other things for cell phones to passports An external hard drive and a thumb drive with malware She got there now There's a gap here in security, but I think I think to make it all relative to us look This is our nation's security. We're talking about this isn't political for me. I for 25 years in the fbi I had to be non-partisan. I I've locked up and arrested corrupt politicians From all parties. I'm an equal opportunity arrestor I just don't like corruption so I'm here to tell you That window was seized by someone now. Is she a full-blown Chinese intelligence officer? Absolutely not That's not that's not how they would do this She's large if there's any connection at all to chinese intel She's a dupe of some kind that was told to do something. She has no idea What what she was going to do or who told her to do what but you know that if you stick that thumb drive anywhere in In a network anywhere really and it's it's sophisticated enough It could start beaconing back the president's uh, you know menu selection from his room and the president's plan on the chinese summit That's being planned. Um, you know, you just you just don't know and and I think We have we have any you we do have a unique president in that his posture On security seems to be governed by a couple things one is Um, kind of what I call the um, you are not the boss of me syndrome Which is I I'll do whatever I want do whatever I want That that's okay. Many people voted for this president because they wanted to break the mold But from a security standpoint That's a really bad attitude to have because it's our nation's security if marlago gets breached by an adversary It's not just the president getting breached. It's us getting breached and so We've got to we've got to understand security is is all of our jobs and just bring it home at You know when you go home at night, if you don't have what there's one thing you can do If you don't have some malware virus protection on your home system Please do that. It's well worth the cost and it's and it's fights a battle every microsecond Blocking, you know the attempts to get at you and get your data. Trust me It's like you don't want to see it happen But you want to pay for that to be happening And at the presidential level, you know, we've got we've got adversaries that are trying to hurt us And I'm thinking this one incident is not going to come out to be major state sponsored incident. I don't think It might But it's a symptom of a larger attitude and and a lax Security posture and for the first time ever we have a president who does his weekends. Not at camp david A highly highly secure place from a cyber and physical perspective, but rather at a place that runs for profit That has to let the public and members in and where the secret service god bless them Doesn't control the domain The man the weekend manager decides who gets in or not Maybe it's time to think think again about that Good. Thank you Read a quote recently that says bad guys don't break in anymore. They just log in So from a from an it perspective that resonates and that's something that we see, you know In most organizations this phishing Email phishing attempts, and I think that's gets to your malware antivirus make sure you have those protections but people are just freely giving up their credentials and Allowing people to sign into these critical systems from a security perspective The challenge is that the goalpost keeps moving So all these technical controls and even the human controls that we talk about Are trying to keep pace, but the end the end goal keeps moving Any advice to those of us in the room in the industry other than changing careers? What do we do with this? Well, certainly don't give up and by the way tell your young people and your family To go into this line of work. I'm not kidding you computer security is where it's at And there'll be a demand for that well well well into the foreseeable future I like to joke that there's two kinds of companies or two kinds of universities those that have been hacked And those that don't know it yet That's how pervasive it is And it certainly happens at fairfield and every other university and every other company You can sit at a major company and watch their firewall get pinged 10,000 times a second 10,000 times a second and then you could watch their security experts tell you by the intrusion signature Who it is? It's astounding. This is china. This is russia. This is iran And companies are out ahead of this. They're out ahead of law enforcement and the intelligent they'll they'll tell the fbi. This is a russian signature. Here's why It's astounding. So that's the good news. We've got some bright people Doing this but yeah the the goalposts keep moving what my focus is on and I can't emphasize this enough is the the marriage of human security and data security The the the the movement of data the behavior of data and the behavior of humans Are inextricably linked and if an institution is not marrying those up, right? If you're if you're not having a cup of coffee At least once a week with the head of the director of security for the university Then then I would encourage you to develop that kind of relationship. You say well, wait a minute. I don't understand that You guys need to form a team and understand what makes the university or your company truly tick What is it? We're worried about let's let's troubleshoot this. Let's lock ourselves in a room for two days With some real expert. Let's get let's get the dean from engineering. Let's get the finance chairman Let's let's all sit in a room. You've probably done this. I hope you have and say what is it? That we get somebody from outside Maybe the FBI to tell you what's being targeted in the academic area What's on the shopping list for china the next five years because guess what they publish it? They do they have a five-year plan That's pretty neat We have the answers to the text. They tell us what they're targeting We want to acquire the following technologies, right? Cool. Are you doing anything with that most companies go? Well, where's the list? Where do we get that list? Find out if you got stuff on the list then start hunkering down hardening that from a human access perspective And from a data protection perspective We started calling that the human firewall Outstanding. I love it. So we'll see where that goes. All right. Let's shift gears a little bit a couple more questions And I think we can open it up to some q&a So we're going to jump in the way back machine. We're going to think back to the 80s When frank was on campus When you think back to your time there, what was the most impactful skills that you learned That helped you speaking of career and where you are today. We talked a little bit about this. Yeah. Yeah I I like to joke that uh, my law enforcement career started as an r.a In the dorms And I we were talking earlier about the fact that while I was there the drinking age Changed I I got lower got higher. I don't know but all I know is all of a sudden nobody would sit with me in the cafeteria Because you know, I didn't want to know about that keg That was uh, and moved into the dorm on a Friday night But if you made it blatant I might have to address it. So here's in all seriousness I did that for I was an r.a for two years my junior and senior year Um, my wife was as well Um, and we met as r.a Um, and we're still ticking Almost 30 30 it'll be 34 years so skill set This is an easy one. It's communication It's communication if I had to point to one thing um, that allowed me to go from An intern at the fbi while I was in law school to assistant director 25 years later It was the ability to communicate verbally and didn't write No, there's this hands down and did I get that from fearfield? Yeah in large part. I did And just you know write this again Edit this again You can do this more concise You know read this much data and compress it down to this Yeah, that's a that's a life Skill set and so I and so, you know, there's an interesting dynamic going on in in university discussions Is the four-year degree worth it? I keep hearing that discussion You know, what about just getting a certificate or and that's a healthy discussion by the way I there's a lot of argument there that yeah, you know what? Maybe you don't need that but what you lose there Is four years of liberal arts? Critical thinking in all areas. I think that would be that's a loss And then look what I do now. I communicate for a living You know, and I write to I write for NBC. I just have I'll have a piece coming out. I think tomorrow On the security clearance debacle in washington So I write and speak for a living and I think in large parts of fearfield for helping equipment for that So speaking of living or career or those that are in the room Maybe thinking about a career change or getting into a career any advice you've seen a bunch of different things over your years Any advice for anybody? Thinking about security risk law enforcement in particular Look, I'm biased, but There's nothing like a career in public service Um, you will not get wealthy But you will be satisfied You will And the story I tell is Coming out of law school When I told people, you know what? I'm going into the FBI I got a lot of my buddies harassed me. They're like you're you're gonna go play cops and rockers We're going over here. We're gonna make some money. We're going to the corporate. We're going insurance industry Well a year later my phone starts ringing at the FBI I don't feel satisfied. I'm being asked to do things. I don't think are ethical Uh, I'm not I'm not growing professionally. I'm bored out of my mind How do I get into the FBI? so I tell young people and I'll talk to young people all day about a career in public service At any level and I just think it's incredibly satisfying and you may not do it your whole career, but Dip your feet in and uh, I think you'll you'll end up staying Great. Yep. Thank you. Thank you Thanks for having me So I think at this point we'll open up to the floor Pat's got a microphone there and Frank, uh, my name is Joe Delaney I first of all want to thank you for communicating so well to us Who watch you on television on these important issues? If you know the answer to this question, could you share it with us? Security security risk is national security What is happening at West Point? Annapolis The Air Force Academy goes guard to train the men and women our future officers To be on the vanguard of what will be The real attack that may come to us Do you know if what the military in these academies and throughout your other programs Are training our young people for so so there's some good news there I do know a little bit about what's going on there and I'm I'm actually pleased by it There's again as always there's good news and bad news Information warfare. It's the new battleground. No question and good good programs and training are going on throughout the military I mean people in droves are being directed once once they sign up being directed into computer security cyber security And and it in the military services and that's the future battlefield. Here's the bad news. There's a bad news We still haven't figured out as a government How to do this? And I mean and I can assure you law and legislation has not caught up with cyber reality So what do I mean? We can't tell you yet. What an act of war Would would look like On an attack. We've had some hellacious things happen to us in terms of cyber attack Right some things you wouldn't even want to know about Some countries giving us signals. Hi, we're here. We're in the system How are you? We got in Right, what what's an act of war? How about Hacking into the democratic party and taking that data Is that an act of war? What what is it shutting down our infrastructure our power grid at what point? Here's the thing. We don't have we don't know we don't know worst question. Who's in charge? Who's in charge? Oh, there's a air force air force cyber command. They're in charge They'll have it. Yeah, you got agreement across the government line Anyone else think they're in charge? So you've put the military in charge. So you're already saying This is war kind of but we're not sure but you don't know what would trigger that war and and what would we do? Would we shut down their power? Is it tit for tat you shut down our fAA air traffic control? We'll do the same to you. So we're crashing planes around the world there So we haven't figured that out yet. So good news. The training is occurring military Well, well on this. I'm I'm pleased we want to see Rest of government who's in charge how we define war and reciprocity I don't know it's not there yet Oh, yeah, so well see I don't What scares me is when you see testimony on the hill from the people who are supposed to be in charge This happened you can watch the clips And congressional committee saying to a bunch of generals and intelligence agency heads You're getting direction from the from the White House. You guys got this figured out Is the money being spent on this you guys got a plan? Watch these very important people go head goes down Shuffling of paper I don't not not not not entirely. No, not entirely Hmm. So yes Something you can demand of your elected officials. It's going on cyber Hi, there's hello It was just Campbell and I'm in the communications business and high technology work with very large companies And uh, this is for whatever it's worth the last time. I think that Technology systems have so outstripped The civics systems that exist was leading up to world war one when people are thinking that Mobilizations were going to take a month six weeks and they took A week That diplomacy was by telegraph rather than courier, etc. etc. Now the reason I say that is a foundational point is that We are only at most two generations away From computers writing their own programs So that the artificially intelligent programs will be writing Programs that the people who wrote the first programs do not understand And that the consensus in the financial world that I Travel in is that The next big war Will really be between two ai's from different nations And that no one will know How their programs work Do you have any thoughts on that? They're not people headaches. I'm sorry. They're not good thoughts Okay So let's yeah, let's uh exacerbate that scenario by putting the scenario in the hands of really Evil adversaries who want to hurt us right this let's understand these aren't well It could be two allied systems who just get out of control and I'll take that scenario and hopefully somebody will wake up and go Hey, we need to shut this off But but unlikely we could now put it in the hands of an adversary who means To do us harm And who can't control this is this is kind of like A nation state. I I won't I won't pick a nation But a nation state who doesn't quite give us a warm fuzzy feeling about their control of nukes Right, where are they right now? Who's in control of your nuclear buttons right now? Where where the missiles there are countries like us We worry about those countries a lot now. Yeah, so you the scenario you you proposed is on steroids of not being able to control your nukes, but Um, it should worry us all that we haven't figured out as a government Who's in charge of that scenario? Secondly? There's a whole set of human behavior issues that come out of the this artificial intelligence world Ethics integrity and you know, this may be an awful segue to a Jesuit university Concept, but you know what you talk about what did we take away from our fairfield education? I found ethics and integrity entering into virtually all of our classroom discussions at some point And i'm not sure I see that Happening in the AI world. I i'm confident it's happening at fairfield somewhere in some classroom, but Across the board across the world I don't see the ethics component being addressed there. So Um, I don't I don't have those answers, but I know that We're way behind the curve as you said on the civic side Of what's happening on the cyber side. Uh, my name is Michael. I'm a high school student interested in the field And uh, I just want to know which field in particular, uh, probably national security or intelligence. So make sure of the two Talk about more about law of war and standard and cyber warfare You think the united states, uh, presumably and hopefully leading the international community Should adopt a set of standards for targets that are prohibited for cyber warfare, you know Industrial control elections healthcare, or do you think for the time being we should adopt what you talked about before as a kind of anything goes You know, if they're going to do it to us, we'll do it to them mentality Do you think we need to be the ones that kind of handicap the process kind of like we do in nuclear armament? And say no, there's a standard for what needs to be done Even if that means giving up a strategic advantage What a great question. Um So this is going to sound either naive or corny, but I still believe That there should be a principled foundation to american decision making And foreign policy and what I see happening and I opened with this concept Which is that everything's become situational ethics on a geopolitical level Our allies are doing transactional decisions that help us today. My enemy is my enemy today But tomorrow they could be my friend and no one has your back Well, we have our back if it's our have your back if it's in our best interest So I think one of the few things that distinguishes america from other countries is the fact that we do have certain moral principles that tend historically to have governed our decision making And as they say if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything I think it's very tempting to say We will we will match you if you attack this will attack it at your place That's a problem that we see that in this in the cyber world right now Because there's a downside to this ethical principled thing that sounds great when i'm sitting up here in the front of the room Other countries don't play by those rules Okay, so we see countries Literally ripping off Our corporate secrets right coke recently in the news coca-cola has suffered Tremendous loss of intellectual property had to do with the lining of cans Of all things right Apple is experiencing intellectual property loss You know every time they announce a new product Somebody has already got it already or is cloning it already, right? So what do we have in terms of that as rules? We are principled We don't steal corporate secrets The united states intelligence agencies do not steal corporate secrets from other countries Should we start doing it? No What are we going to stand for and how do we how do we point a finger at another country and say you stole coca-cola secret When china or russia could go well you stole our secret You know it helps to take the high roads sometimes so I I do think we should have a plan I'm worried that we don't have the plan yet Um, and I don't think the plan should be kind of an unprincipled Everything's on the table I don't I don't think that's who we are I and I hope that's not who we've become Hi, thanks for a great discussion. Um, I'm curious Your thoughts on the devices that people are increasingly welcoming into their homes Forget about smartphones, but Amazon echo google home ring People, you know devices that are literally listening and watching Every single thing you do at home Any thoughts? Yes, it troubles me greatly. Look, I am not A luddite. I'm not anti-technical. I love I have I have an echo I find it very helpful, but I can tell you in a corporate setting University setting and you I'm sure you guys have already been asked this question I I've had client companies. I walk through the you know, we're building an intellectual property protection program I walk through the company conference rooms Alexa on every conference room table Hmm What goes on in that conference room? Oh, we discuss our marketing strategy for the next year Hmm. Okay. That's interesting. All right Um Tesla Tesla cars right great concept. They didn't do well today's announcement deliveries You get you get have you seen this study of someone's gone out and studied tesla crashes And they go to the junkyard and they get the crash tesla they download All of the personal data off the car. It's it's probably one of the most well-equipped smart cars you can have All your personal data is on there Anytime you hook up your device right in there It's got all your credit card shopping and stuff from your phone that you looked into the car And it's who you called and what you know the congress say it's wow where you've been You're driving habits and all of that And and look there's positives and negatives. I have corporate clients in terms of data protection You are eating healthy in the corporate cafeteria today They track that on your corporate card and you hit the corporate gym three times this week.  What's going on there? Should you dismantle it or not? We've had after some discussion with corporate clients. They've taken them all out It's it's a call you have to make in your house be aware Of what the capabilities are and because it's not you're not going to find it on the instruction manual for the device They're not going to tell you that But there there are issues Increasingly so and the juxtaposition what I get really Really mind blown about is when all of this data gets combined so amazon is delivering to your house And there's the they've got your device and they know when as soon as you order it verbally That they're starting to process it and your viewing habits. You watch amazon prime So you watch that when you watch that racy movie You watch that racy movie and you talked about it that you ordered and then your medications being delivered by mail And they know what that is all of that being Bind is a scary proposition because it we've we've seen look the special counsel inquiry has shown us our data was used um against us And uh, I don't see people really changing their behavior after this Hi My name is tim Thank you for your experience and your service to our country I'm really appreciative that you only told him about half of how bad it is And for the lady who has alexa you can crack that in about 30 seconds with cali linux So good for you. So here's the question I have for you Based on our prior company or prior country's policy of name and shame Which has not been effective against the chinese or russians Do we have a process in place to take that one step further? For example, I work in itu automation Currently the black hat hackers are targeting media companies International internet companies anyone who's doing any media cnn abc nbc any of these companies they're targets We are targets. We are being fished right now But is there some reason why our national security organizations aren't targeting them back Not on a lower level Which is yeah, we're going to steal your secrets too because we know there's a group of 350 people In a building outside of beijing whose sole purpose in life is to hack our companies steal our intellectual property Get into our infrastructure Turn down our electric grid everything that you haven't really pointed out yet but Why don't we do something like that to them on a higher level? for example A find and buy scenario I use machine learning To find the ip addresses of the people that are attacking me from beijing I use ai to determine their machine address codes. I then come up with a script Use ai I go out and then I use a dedicated denial of service attack to crash their connections one after another Or spoof their addresses to their own compatriots and then tell them Hey, your buddy is hacking your own account. Isn't that great? What a great idea. Why don't we do this? Why aren't we attacking our opponents on a higher level like this? Love love the question, but love even more What you just described you're doing on a personal level And able to do that most of us in this room are not equipped to do so a couple of thoughts One is for those of you who who may not recall the reference to the chinese people's liberation army pla Hackers so good news The u.s. Government identified by name just as we did with the russians in the special counsel decree by name keystroke location The whole thing Who in the chinese army is hacking us and they chose the department of justice chose to indict us kind of a message Maybe a shot across the bow a week one five PLA hackers by name Well It changed behavior for I don't know. What would you say a couple of months? a week Okay Change behavior and guess what it almost got worse because you know what they started doing They started going. Oh, okay. They're on to us. They know that we use the army to do this They went and started grabbing civilians and using private firms and contractors and kids in china now It's kind of like the isis problem. It's all decentralized now And it's not that the chinese it's not that the intel services in the army have given up. No But now we got chinese kids and you know, it's it's decentralized So so much for for the indictments We'll never get our hands on these chinese army folks, by the way, and they don't care. They're not going to leave so There's that with regard to what we're doing. Okay Part of this gets too into classified information, which we're not going to get into But there's some good news thing really sexy things are being done But to the level that you pointed out No Not on a real message sending strategic level and my understanding of why not It goes back to the fact that we haven't figured out the plan yet as to what We would call an act of war and we there's fear involved in this That's what I get a lot back out of washington is Oh If we do that They're going to do that to us be prepared and we're not prepared Wow Okay So That may be a good thing in the sense that there's fear on both sides I see a lot of you know, like I said peek-a-boo. We're here That we do that same thing. We're here too. Yep. We got you But people are afraid to go any further than that and to find and bind Binding minds are great Strategy I I know there are plans. I know that that's Absolutely on the table But the extent to which they're doing that is probably classified And there we are but fear is behind a lot of the inaction Hi So I know we talked about a lot of different things from national security university security to Everyday devices like Alexa, but do you have a stance on a biological standpoint? there seems to be a lot of Curiosity and advertised curiosity and trust and things like um 23 and me and ancestry dna To even looking up our own medical records online. What's your stance on that? Yeah Be very very afraid so So we talked about facebook selling our data imagine For sale and this scandal you know this scandal is coming and i'm not picking on any one company I I love the concept of learning more about your ancestry and your health particularly right like although quite frankly most results From those tend to be what you already knew. Yeah, you should be drinking so much caffeine. You're sensitive to it. Yeah, I knew that I knew that um, but there are tremendous genetic Benefits to learning your genetic code and and if you're predisposed to a certain disease I'd rather see that done in a doctor office setting. I'd rather see that done with my private doctor Because the scandal is coming. It's it's it's just coming if facebook is selling our instant messaging and our shopping habits Someone's going to sell Or already is selling your genetic code and that's a step away from the insurance company getting it and saying whoo Looks like you're going to have a heart attack in 10 years We're not ensuring you um, that's a problem And I worry about that and it's it's a perfect way to end you had the last question It's a perfect way to end a discussion on feeling insecure and unstable, right when you know your genetic code Could be for sale, right? And and even on the you know, this is less serious, but even on the ancestry side You go, well, what what's the problem there? We have a president a candidate for president right Elizabeth Warren who Said she was native american She had the test done No, not so much Not so much. This is this is now impacting your ancestry's this and 23 of these and other companies impacting our decision on who we vote for This is a bizarre time. We're living on right and and and the closure I have on this is We all need to be more informed consumers. So before you sign up for that genetic test ask yourself Uh, where is this going? Okay, can you guarantee the privacy on this? What is privacy anymore? Thanks for the question If I may add a note of thanks Frank, thank you so much for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule To comment share your expertise with us. It was fascinating. Thank you. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Go stag.  They have two wonderful alumni here John Thank you. Um, thank you for your support and thank you for partnering with me on this great event The team has a gift for both of you. So 23 made a test Mary and Mike have gifts for both of you Oh, wow Thank you And if I may add another note of thanks he uh, thanked everyone at the beginning of this event But I want to say thank you. Joe Delaney because this not would not have this happened if not for you Thank you for being our host. It was wonderful So I hope to see you all at uh future fearful county chapter events again. Thank you both. Let's give them a huge round of applause