PBS高端访谈:美国遭遇大规模黑客攻击（在线收听）

JUDY WOODRUFF: There is new and troubling information on a massive cyberattack against the U.S. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency has determined that the recent hacking of federal, state, and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure and other private sector organizations, poses -- quote -- "a grave risk." They also said that eliminating the malicious computer code from compromised computer networks will be highly complex and challenging. We start by turning again to Dmitri Alperovitch. He's co-founder of Silverado Policy Accelerator. It's a Washington-based think tank. Dmitri Alperovitch, thank you so much for being with us again. We are learning from the cyber agency that the hackers used possibly more than one path to get in. How significant is that?

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH, Co-Founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator: ...espionage campaigns in history. And we have just breaking this tonight before you went on the air that Microsoft was one of the other vendors whose software was impacted here. And the Russians were able to leverage it to get into some of the victims, in addition to the original company called SolarWinds. But the impact is huge, because you have so many companies using the software that essentially gave a map to the Russian intelligence service, who is believed to be behind this, to gain entry, government agencies, private sector companies alike.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it sounds serious enough. But then there is this additional reporting today from Politico that they managed to get inside the Energy Department, inside the national Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the nuclear weapons stockpiles. It sounds serious. How serious is this?

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: Well, this was a supply chain hack. So, in effect, the Russians were able to infiltrate into these software companies whose software is used by tens of thousands of organizations globally, including most of the sensitive government agencies. And then they cherry-picked. They decided which targets they wanted to go after to actually get into the doors and exfiltrate very sensitive information from those networks. And that is why we are seeing this drip, drip, by drip reports of numerous government agencies that you can imagine would be of high interest to the Russian intelligence services, like the State Department, like the Treasury Department, like the Pentagon, and now the Department of Energy as well and others.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Dmitri Alperovitch, do we have a sense of how close they came to triggering something -- I mean, the whole thing is serious enough -- but to triggering, I don't know, a nuclear incident or some other unthinkable sort of incident, step, emergency?

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: This is an incredibly dangerous situation and very detrimental to our national security. But there are two silver linings here that I think it's useful for us to remember. One, it looks like this was a traditional espionage attack. It looks like they were not interested in destruction. And it looks like no data was -- is being changed. We may find out differently in the future. But, for now at least, it looks like they went in and did traditional theft of information, very, very serious stuff, but -- of course, but it could have been so much worse. And second silver lining is that, in this particular case, it looks like they were not able to get access to classified networks. Those are networks that are disconnected from the Internet, so they are extremely difficult to infiltrate. And that's where most of the U.S. government secrets, of course, are located on. But even compromising the unclassified networks, they still contain enormous amounts of sensitive information. So, this is going to be very, very damaging to our national security for many years to come.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, as we reported, very difficult to unwind, to undo whatever damage was done?

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: It is going to take us months to get the Russians out of those networks. In particular, if it is indeed the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, they are the ones that infiltrated the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department back in 2015. And it took many, many weeks for those organizations back then to kick them out, because they are so good at burying themselves in, staying stealthy, maintaining that foothold within the organization, that it's going to take us probably months to get them out of all these networks that they have been able to infiltrate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dmitri Alperovitch, as always, we thank you.

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: Thank you so much.

朱迪·伍德乐夫：关于美国遭遇大规模网络攻击事件出现了新的令人不安的消息。网络安全与基础设施局认定，最近针对联邦、州和地方政府以及关键基础设施和其他私营部门组织的黑客攻击构成了“严重风险”。他们还说，从被攻破的计算机网络中消除恶意计算机代码将是非常复杂和具有挑战性的。我们再次连线德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇，他是智库“Silverado Policy Accelerator”的联合创始人，其总部设在华盛顿。德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇，非常感谢你再次来到我们的节目。我们从网络机构了解到黑客可能使用了不止一条途径进入。这一点有多重要呢？

德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇，联合创始人，Silverado Policy Accelerator：...历史上的间谍活动。微软和其它供应商一样其软件都受到了影响，在该新闻播出之前我们今晚打破了这个局面。除了最初的“SolarWinds”公司，俄罗斯人能够利用它接触到一些受害者信息，但影响是巨大的，因为该软件说白了就是给幕后黑手、即俄罗斯情报机构提供了一张地图以便获取入口，进入政府机构、私营企业等，而使用这款软件的公司太多了。

朱迪·伍德乐夫：嗯，听起来挺严重的。但是，之后Politico网站今天又有报道称他们成功进入了能源部、进入了国家核安全局，该机构负责管理核武器库存。听起来很严重，那么到底有多严重呢？

德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇：嗯，这是一条供应链黑客。所以，其实俄罗斯能够渗透到这些软件公司，这些公司的软件被全球数以万计的组织使用，其中包括很多敏感的政府机构。然后他们精心挑选，决定追踪哪个目标进入入口，从这些网络中窃取非常敏感的信息。这就是为什么我们看到有那么多的政府机构报告，你可以想象俄罗斯情报机构会对这些报告有多感兴趣，比如国务院、财政部、五角大楼、现在还有能源部等等。

朱迪·伍德乐夫：所以，德米特里·阿尔佩罗维奇，这件事触发一些事情的几率有多大，就是说，这件事情非常严重，所以会出发核事故或者其它什么不可思议的大事，过程是怎样的呢？紧急吗？

德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇：这是一个非常危险的局面，对我们国家的安全非常不利。但有两点希望，有两点是我觉得有利的。首先，这次网络袭击好像只是一般的间谍攻击，他们似乎对破坏没什么兴趣，因为数据看起来没有被改变，不过后期说不准。但是，至少就目前而言他们只是像以往那样黑进来然后盗窃了信息，非常非常机密的东西。但是，当然，情况本来会更糟的。第二点希望是，在这种特殊情况下他们似乎无法进入机密网络，这些网络是跟互联网断开连接的，所以很难黑进来。当然，美国政府的大多数机密文件都存储在那里。不过，虽说是非机密网络，但它们涵盖的敏感信息的量还是非常多的。所以还是会在未来多年对我们国家的国家安全造成非常、非常严重的损害。

朱迪·伍德乐夫：还有就是，正如我们报道的那样，已经造成的损害很难消除吗？

德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇：我们要花几个月的时间才能把俄罗斯人从这些网络里赶出来。尤其是，如果他们真的是SVR(俄罗斯对外情报机构)，就是2015年渗透进白宫、参谋长联席会议和国务院的人，当时那些组织花了好多个星期的时间才把他们赶出去，因为他们非常善于隐藏自己，秘密行事，保持组织内的立足点，我们可能要花几个月的时间才能把他们从他们能够渗透的所有网络中踢出去。

朱迪·伍德乐夫：德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇，还是，谢谢。

德米特里·阿尔佩洛维奇：非常感谢。