EP 394: Richard Clarke and Robert Knake on Cyber War

Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake have served as the top cyber security experts to three Presidents, and they discuss their new book The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. They discuss Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and say that Russia will almost certainly try it again in 2020. They warn against the folly of continuing to allow local state bureaucrats to ensure the integrity of America’s electronic voting machines and suggest that Russia’s 2015 shutdown of Ukraine’s power grid might have been a dry run for a similar attack on the grid here in the US. Clarke predicts that the next war that America enters will likely be triggered by a cyber attack. They discuss the offensive and defensive potential of new technology like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G. They advocate for private companies to take greater ownership of their own data security instead expecting the government to protect them from attacks. Plus they offer a few steps that every listener should take to protect themselves from cyber crime. Order The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats on Amazon, Audible or wherever books are sold. This episode is sponsored by Bank of America’s The Academy for Consumer and Small Business and Capella University's Doctoral Degree Program.