The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: The Assad regime in Syria faces a growing challenge as rebel forces push southward. Brian Carter from the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute joins us to analyze the latest developments. Iranian hackers escalate their cyberattacks, reportedly breaching high-profile targets, including the president-elect's FBI nominee, Kash Patel. Former FBI counterintelligence operative Eric O’Neill shares insights into what this means for national security. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And this weekend, our Situation Report is coming to you from London. Now, that's in the United Kingdom. I'm just here for a few days getting my knighthood. It's very exciting. All right, let's get briefed. Start things off in Syria, where rebel forces continue their advanced south, putting President Assad's regime on the defensive. Brian Carter from the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute will join us to break down the latest developments in this incredibly complex situation. And isn't that what the Middle East needed now? More chaos. Next, we'll shift stateside where Iranian hackers are ramping up their cyber attacks, reportedly breaching the President-elect's nominee for FBI. director, Cash Patel. We'll get insights from former FBI counterintelligence operative and founding

partner of the Georgetown group, Eric O'Neill. But first, the Situation Report spotlight. The Civil War in Syria broke wide open this week after rebels achieved significant victories by capturing two major cities, Aleppo and Hamat, in a rapid offense that has shaken the Assad regime's hold on the region. The fall of Aleppo, a long-contested urban stronghold, marks a symbolic and strategic blow to the government, while Hamas capture further isolates Damascus, the regime's capital. These developments suggest a dramatic shift in momentum with rebel factions increasingly uniting against President Assad's forces who now appear to be in retreat. Joining me now for more on this is Brian Carter. He's the Middle East portfolio manager for the Critical Threats Project at the

American Enterprise Institute. Brian, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Listen, let's start with a sort of a generic question here about Syria. How screwed is the region? I don't know how badly this will impact the region yet, but Assad is definitely in big trouble. And I think one of the things that we have to look at as we watch the regime sort of collapse and crumble is what other groups are going to take advantage of this situation and exploit it to their own ends. So for me, the big one to watch is going to be ISIS, which is really, grown in strength in some of the regime areas, such as the central Syria and desert, in the past couple of years. And I think that will have big impacts for, you know, the main U.S.

priority in Syria for the past 10 years now, which has been the defeat of ISIS. Can you set the table? I mean, again, I'd mentioned at the top of the show that this is a complex situation. That's putting it mildly. But for the viewers' sake, can you kind of set the table on the rebel side? Who are the rebels? Where did they start from? How would you categorize them in terms of other groups out there in the Middle East? Sure.

So I'll start with the big one, Hayat Tarir Asham, which is the main opposition group that is conducting the offensive in kind of the north and western areas of Syria right now. So it was created by a man named Abu Muhammad Jolani. Jolani grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a al-Qaeda guy and he eventually took over the branch in Syria as al-Qaeda in Iraq began to transition in the Islamic State. He broke away from the Islamic State and pledged Bayat or allegiance to Zohiri, al-Qaeda's leader at the time. However, over the years, he's kind of tried to moderate himself and has begun to present himself less as a Salafi jihadi like al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and more of what we call a political jihadists. He's not interested or he says he's not interested in external attacks outside of Syria. And instead, in recent years, has put a lot of effort into rehabilitating his image, working with my. minorities in the northwest of Syria. And this is one of the things actually that has made his

offensive, his group's offensive, so successful is he's actually, when he liberates towns from the regime, he's doing it oftentimes without fighting because he will negotiate with local Shia or Christian notables and say, hey, if you join me, we're not going to have any problems. I mean, that all sounds very nice and political, right? I mean, he's he's remaking his image. I'm sure he's got a public relations firm working with him on this. But do you believe it? I mean, is just, he's doing this, you know, as window dressing. Because I think people, when folks first heard that Assad was taking this pressure,

and there was a real problem for his regime, I think that the initial reaction from a lot of people was, well, that's good. But the concern is always what comes in behind. And I think the more of the people are hearing about what HTS is all about this main group and those that are kind of cobbling together with him. I mean, are you buying this remake of the image? Do you believe that that's the case or is he just doing that because it allows him to, you know, advance the ball?

Possibly, but I think he's also learned a lot over his career. He kind of seems to have evolved through the years. And so he started in that very Salafi jihadi, very sacked. mindset. And I think one of the things that we're seeing now and what he is doing, especially in engaging with the Shia and the Iraqis diplomatically, is he says things in a way that signals to me that he has learned some lessons. He knows the Shia fear of these Sunni militant groups, you know, breathing down their necks. And he knows that's one of the reasons that Assad was able to convince so many people to fight for him back in the early 2010s. And I think that's why we're going to

really notable. Now, granted, Jolani is operating from a position of, I mean, he's getting stronger every day, but a weaker position. So when he gains power, does he maintain this sort of mindset? I don't know. Now, again, there are so many layers here. I'm hoping you'll do for us this kind of simplify what's happening if that's possible, because there are a number of

players, right? It's not just the Assad regime, the Syrian regime. And now the Syrian regime is essentially, not to oversimplify, but it's essentially an offshoot of Shia. So they are receiving significant support from the Iranian regime. But who are the players out there? Because there are a number of them. Yeah, sure. So I can kind of walk through. I'll walk to the regime. And I'll walk through who the U.S. is backing and all that's for a stuff. So the regime, Bashar al-Assad is an al-Aid from the sort of western coast of Syria. One of the reasons that this area was so hard for the opposition to gain any ground in back in the early 2010s was because there was a fear among the al-Oyid minority that were Assad to fall, the Sunni would retaliate against them. So that is one of the reasons he's able to build up, Assad is able to build up such support there.

Now, the Iranians back Assad, and the Iranian-backed Shia groups in the region, back Assad, because they see him as critical to their regional aspirations. So they see him as a way, as a conduit, to get weapons to Hezbollah, for example, and to kind of strengthen themselves at the expense of the Gulf states and other Sunni powers in the country. the region. Now, the U.S. is backing a Kurdish group called the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria. Now, that group has begun also taking some territory from the Assad regime. We actually just saw them take Derizor City this morning, which is a very big development. Derizor City has been under regime control for many years. It's on the western bank of the Euphrates River. The Syrian Democratic forces were the U.S. partner chosen to destroy or defeat ISIS during the campaign that the United States kind of led in northeast of Syria. It contains a large contingent of Kurdish groups that were built out of a cadre of a Kurdish organization called the YPG, which is affiliated with the PKK.

So Turkey has big problems with the PKK. the United States sees the PKK as a terrorist organization, so it gets very, very complies. Nonetheless, the Kurds have also incorporated some Arab elements, which is why I think you see those Arab elements agitating to liberate some of their homes on the western side of Euphrates River. Okay, now, as if there weren't enough folks attending this party, you've also got the Russians. Yeah, the Russians, for their part, haven't been able to have. actually help Assad during this round of fighting because they're running into a situation where they have to prioritize Ukraine. And so they can't send him the sort of forces that he needs to be able to turn the tide. The Russians were the critical actor that turned the tide in 2015.

The Iranians realized they couldn't do it alone and asked the Russians to help provide air power. The Russians provided that airpower, and Assad started to kind of turn the tide on his opposition. So the Russians back Assad because they like having access to the ports along the Western Syrian coast. And again, Assad's kind of home country. But as the position unravels, I expect we'll see more and more Russian withdrawals from Syria. Yeah, and I think they've always, I mean, obviously during the Cold War, Syria was aligned with the Soviet Union. And I think they still see it historically as sort of their foothold in the Middle East, their ability to have more influence in the Middle East.

So you've got the Russians, you've got the Iranians, you've got the U.S., you've got Turkey, you've got a variety of different groups, the Kurds and others, all engaged out there. To what degree do you think Assad is actually a lot? danger. What are the chances he collapses? His regime collapses. I think if you asked me that question on Monday, I would have said, you know, I think the rebels have had a lot of success. HTS has had a lot of success, but it's pretty unlikely. Today, I think it's greater than 50% and it's really getting higher every hour. The complete collapse of regime forces has been astonishing. Personally, I've compared it to the way that the Afghan National Army began to collapse

in 2021 and the ramifications of that. So I really think that he is in danger. And one of the key pieces that we're looking at right now is whether or not Holmes City will fall here in the coming days. In the list of priorities, you know, where is Holmes in terms of size and importance to, compared to, say, Aleppo, Damascus, Chama? Yeah. So Holmes, in my view, is probably second only to Damascus. Holmes is very important because if the opposition take homes, it cuts off Assad from that home country I was talking about, that western coast. So once he's cut off there, he is in very dire streets. Listen, Brian, if you'll stay right there, don't go anywhere. We've got a number of terrific sponsors. We're going to hear from a couple of them right now. We're going to take a quick break,

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Let me bring back our guest, Brian Carter of the American Enterprise Institute. Brian, thanks very much for sticking around. We'll need about another 12 hours, it seems, to sort through the complexity of the Syrian situation. But where do you think, or how would you describe, let me put it that way, how would you describe the current U.S. administration's position on what's happening in Syria? What is going on in Syria right now is a byproduct of what? what we have seen successive administrations do for the past, you know, going on 15 years. This isn't an Obama problem, a Trump problem, or a Biden problem. It's really all of them.

The U.S. policy in Syria, especially since, you know, after the territorial defeat of ISIS, has been, you know, in air quotes, defeat ISIS, but we haven't actually been doing the things to defeat us. ISIS, you've been containing ISIS. And so I think we've looked at this conflict for so long as a frozen conflict. And we're saying, okay, well, you know, the Assad regime has practically won and these borders aren't going to change anytime soon. And it will just keep chugging along like this. But, you know, this situation just goes to show you can't really freeze or manage a conflict.

That runs the risk of being surprised in this way. And, you know, I talked a little bit at the beginning of the program about how ISIS is strengthening in some of these regime-held areas. Well, U.S. Central Command and, you know, policymakers weren't willing to strike in those areas very often to really get out ISIS there. So now you have a problem where ISIS knew it was, it could be interfered with the regime, but the regime is far less effective than the United States and the SDF. And so it strengthened there. And now we got surprised. And I think we're going to have to really do some hard thinking about what our policy objectives are in Iraq and Syria going forward, especially as it relates to ISIS. If you look at Iraq, we're saying, oh, we're going to withdraw in 2026.

Do you really want to withdraw in 202026 now, having seen what's happening in Syria? So I think this policy of, oh, we can just manage and keep chugging along is really a failed policy. and it was the easy policy to take, but it was the wrong one. Not to disappear down that rabbit hole, but it kind of mirrors what we've been doing in Ukraine, right? The U.S. government tends to love status quo. And so, you know, give them just enough to kind of keep things the way they are and just keep kicking it down the road. Let's get another ceasefire going in Gaza, and that'll, you know, make it not our problem. And then somebody, you know, eight years or ten years down the road can deal with it.

I saw like one of those two old guys sitting up in the balcony in the Muppets show. I don't know if you remember them. I just like, that's how I go through life nowadays, Brian, is I just sit up in the balcony and I just say cynical things. But why now, as far as the rebels go, what prompted this offensive? Yeah, sure. So it's not entirely clear to me why they chose to go now. I have a feeling that they probably had some sense that the regime around the Aleppo area

was hollowing out and they thought they might have an opportunity to do this, I don't think they thought they would be as successful as they were. The initial objectives of the campaign, and so far as I understand, was actually to push the regime a little further away from the HTS-controlled zone in northwestern Syria centered around Idlib province and kind of push back regime artillery to prevent the regime from shelling civilian areas. Now, once the regime kind of just collapsed, they took advantage of that. They exploited that situation, HTS did, capturing Lepo, and then driving towards Hama and capturing Hama.

And now they're well on their way to Holmes. So, you know, I think it started as kind of like a small scale, a relatively small scale campaign, of course, in a Syria that's had static lines of control for so many years. It would have been a big deal. But they really exploited it and it's become something much larger, much quicker than anybody could have expected. Do we have any real credible or accurate sense of troop strength for the rebels? No, not to my knowledge, at least. The rebel coalition was forged by HTS over several years.

and they had basically put together a conglomeration of different rebel groups. And I'm not exactly sure the exact size of those forces. How well armed are they? They're pretty well armed. They've been doing some things in recent years to kind of prepare for something like this. So, for example, they established a night fighting unit that's really been giving the Syrian Arab Army a lot of trouble. So fighters, I believe, they're equipped with night vision and that sort of equipment. They also have their own drone manufacturing capabilities, which is really impressive.

They also have done some soft things. And what I mean by soft things is things like training. How can you coordinate between these different rebel bodies? How do we professionalize our force? So, for example, HTS founded a sort of like a war college in their controlled areas that began producing, more professional military officers, and I think that's really played a role in this offensive. Just to recap a little bit,

because for me, one of the fascinating parts here is the outside players. So Russia is providing some support. They are providing some assistance. Iran is providing some assistance, all to the Assad regime. So you have that element. On the rebel side,

let's separate the U.S. and the SDF from now. Is there any coordination that, I should ask this, is there any coordination between the SDF which is backed by the US and the HTS and other elements

of that rebel group? Coordination that's going on between HTS and SDF is very very tactical in nature and very designed around making like safe routes for evacuation and stuff like that. So for example, when the,

when HTS took Aleppo. They created a safe zone for the SDF to begin evacuating their fighters from Aleppo. And in fact, one of the things HTS did was they

tried to prevent some of the more I'll say thuggish and more militantly Salafi jihadi factions backed by Turkey from interfering with the

the SDF's evacuation. Well, look, the calm car is jammed, but we haven't even talked about Hezbollah. Hezbollah is sending fighters into Syria to help. So, yeah, we've got more to talk about here, Brian. And so I hope you'll come back. When we call, please pick up the phone. Brian Carter, Middle East portfolio manager

for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Look, man, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time. Well, you thought the Middle East was complicated and then Syria kicks off. Okay, coming up next. Iranian hackers are ramping up their cyber attacks, now reportedly targeting key members of Trump's incoming administration. We'll explore what that means for U.S. security with former FBI counterintelligence operative Eric O'Neill,

and he'll be with us when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Look, it's been a month, right, since America, wrapped up a historic election. You might have heard something about it. Yeah, it just happened. While the White House may be preparing for change, as they always do, the core challenges facing the country, well, they frankly remain the same.

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earning the credentials you need may be faster than you think. Try our experience calculator to see if you could be eligible for course credit and start your comeback today at PurdueGlobal.edu. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Now, this week, we learned that Iranian hackers are continuing their efforts to infiltrate the incoming Trump administration, with reports indicating that they've successfully targeted cash brutality. the President-elect's nominee for the FBI.

Now, this isn't the first time that Iran has set its sights on Trump's team. Just in September, the Justice Department unveiled charges against three hackers tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, for compromising the electronic accounts of Trump campaign aides and others. These incidents highlight Tehran's aggressive cyber strategy aimed at influencing U.S. politics and security. For more on this, let me bring in former FBI counterintuitive. intelligence operative and founding partner of the Georgetown group, Eric O'Neill. Now, he's also the

author of an excellent book. It's called Gray Day, my undercover mission to expose America's first cyber spy. Eric, thanks very much for joining us. It's my pleasure. It's great to be back on the program. Let's talk about this, you know, at the 30,000 foot level, first of all. How serious and how successful has the Iranian regime been thus far in their cyber attack? and their hacking efforts. Iran has been a threat actor against the United States for a long time. They really don't like us

and they've made that very obvious, not just by chanting death to America in the streets. Their cyber campaign has been top tier. One of my biggest concerns is their ability to attack U.S. critical infrastructure. Over the past decade, they've been caught in the U.S. power grid, launching what's called probe attacks.

And then those attacks, a cyber attacker, this is cyber-hackers. espionage, really, we'll see how deep they can get within a network that manages the flow and connections of our power. And what they want to do is they want to find a way in. They want to hide there and do what's called maintain persistence. And the idea, of course, is if there is any future conflict or they just want to hurt us, they can trigger an attack that could cause some sort of cascade attack. I'm sorry for interrupting, but I think what people think about that, right? I want to focus in a second on the on the attacks against the Trump administration in particular and their

efforts to to hack into those accounts. But when people hear about the infrastructure, whether it's the power grid or it's, you know, wastewater or whatever it might be, transportation, I think a lot of times they think the perpetrators are essentially the Chinese or the Russians. So, you know, where do the Iranians fit in this? I mean, how aggressive have they been? How do they compared to the aggressiveness of the other key players. They're very aggressive. And you add in North Korea, too, and you've got the big four. Those are the big four countries that are coming after the U.S. with cyber attacks,

espionage-related cyber attacks more than any other country. And Iran is up there. I mean, is the way they can hurt us. It's the only real way they can hurt us. Eric, with their efforts against the incoming administration, you know, key players within the Trump world, what is their objective, do you think? But they don't like Trump. They haven't liked Trump since 2020 when the attack resulted in the successful killing of Qasem Soleimani. They're still angry about that. And look, when a nation state doesn't like a certain political candidate, they get involved in the election and find a way to maybe hurt that person. And they've been going after the Trump campaign since the summer. Two of the members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were indicted for an attack in August. of this year. And they were indicted in September for an attack in August. And now the most recent

attack, you know, the most high profile one, they're going after all Trump and his associates, was the nominee for the FBI director or something, you know, I'm really interested in Cash Patel. That's Trump's pick for the FBI director. And he was directly targeted in an Iranian cyber attack. And I could, I could promise you, we're going to. to see a lot more of this. Are they looking for specific intel or, you know, is there a specific priority target that they're going after? Or is this more about just seeing what they can get up to, seeing what sort of chaos they can create, just kind of hoovering up whatever is out there? Well, there are a couple of reasons for an intelligence group to launch attacks against a campaign.

One is they want to uncover policy decisions. They want to look at communications. And from what we know from the attack on Patel, it looks like they were able to access some of the, of his private communications and get into his data. That could be email. It could be his phone records. Because they want to know what the future FBI director is going to do, you know, against the Iranian threat here on our soil or in cyberspace. That's very helpful to any country who is in conflict with us. You know, they also probably want to create disinformation campaigns, you know, encourage Americans to lose faith in the Trump campaign and, you know, in the future presidency, that's, that's right around the corner, starting right around the corner. And, you know, Russia does this, China does this,

and Iran also plays in the same game. No, I think that part of it is, is definitely true and has been for quite a long time, right? If you can chip away at the credibility of democracy, you know, sometimes I think the American public gets wrapped up in the idea that, you know, they're favoring one team or the other, right? Oh, you know, Putin. wants, you know, this person to win, the Chinese want this person to win the right. You know, sometimes it literally is just going after the credibility of free and fair elections or going after democracy and its concepts to, you know, sort of create this dissatisfaction. And they've been very successful, I would argue, uh, from that, that point of view. But are you surprised that,

that, you know, people like, like Cash Patel, others who have been in security positions within the government and have been, you know, for some time now in sort of the world of the leading presidential candidate coming through the election season, the campaign season. Are you surprised that people aren't operating encrypted systems, you know, and creating more security around their communications? Well, every single campaign, every four years. And even in the two-year congressional campaign seasons, there is a, in a, in a, alert by the FBI and CIA and other saying that there are attacks that are coming. Be prepared, be ready, upgrade your cybersecurity, but these attacks always are successful in one shape or form. I'm not surprised. I wish I could say I was surprised, but some of these attacks are insidious

and they're very hard to defend against. Yes, we should see them coming. I don't blame him are being breached. Now, it is a little embarrassing and, you know, there's a feather in the cap for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, their cyber attack group to say that we got the potential future director of the FBI. I am worried about what data they did steal because they could use it to embarrass him or undermine him if he does take the seat as the director in the Hoover Building. But I think we need to do better. We needed to do better across not only government and future government, but all industries and depending against a very persistent and current threat in nation-state cyber attacks. Yeah, it does seem like those that are on the offensive, right?

I mean, whether it's the rioting regime or any other state-sponsored effort or, you know, pseudo-state sponsored effort, it does seem like they are so aggressive that they can almost stay one step ahead, right? you come up with another defense mechanism, you come up with another way of preventing an attack, they've already moved on, right? So, you know, I'm not being critical because it is a difficult thing, whether you're in the private, a public sector, but I am surprised sometimes that the security that's implemented within a campaign team isn't already as good as it can possibly be. Right.

It should be better, and they need to do better. In every four years, we have to do better. Every four years, we don't. And so that's why I'm not surprised. How good is the guidance and how proactive is the guidance from the FBI when it comes to reaching out to these, you know, the various campaigns? But also, let's talk about the corporations, too. Is it a two-way dialogue or is it, okay, we've issued another memo, we've talked about a threat, off we go. I mean, how proactive is the Bureau in this effort?

Yeah, the Bureau has a group called the IC3, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, but it is also a threat researcher. They do an enormous amount of outreach about potential attacks, attacks you need to prepare for. They will even give hashes or information about the specific malware that is upcoming and how to defend against it. There are all sorts of resources. And there is very good communication between government and corporations and cybersecurity companies about the threats. Obviously, government, we have the FBI and the NSA and the CIA are able to see a lot of this before it hits the streets. And the faster that can be rolled out for the threat hunters, for the cyber security professionals, the better. So it is out there. And the FBI does do a

pretty good job of getting the notice out. I know all the campaigns are warned that the threat is coming. I think that Trump campaign has been told by a bunch of different groups, including Microsoft and other big tech companies saying that they have stopped massive amounts of fishing attempts against their personal accounts and their business accounts. I mean, they know that Iran is coming too because they can see where the attacks are coming from. But that coordination between the Bureau and other elements of the government and the private sector in particular, I think is really important because sometimes I think in the past it's always struck me as sort of a one way. Hey, you tell us what's happening, right?

So if you get breached as a company, you come and report it to us, right? But, you know, I sometimes have worried that there hasn't been a sharing of information to the degree possible. So it's good to hear that that's been improving. It's increasing. It is. We're going to take a quick break. And then we'll be back to the PDB situation report with Eric O'Neill. And by the way, if you haven't picked up his new book, Gray Day, My Undercover Mission to expose America's

cyber spy, then shame on you. Get out there. Get that book during the break. And then we'll be right back. Picture this. Me, Reese Witherspoon in London. Ordering fish and chips so often, they might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo autographed journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel. Five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what does a toad? toten hole. Visit Wells Fargo.com

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Comfort Inn. It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little songbook direct. at sourcefieldtales.com. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is former FBI counterintelligence operative

and founding partner of the Georgetown group, Eric O'Neill. Eric, thanks very much for sticking around. You talked about at the beginning of this. You mentioned the hacking, the cybertax take place in the critical infrastructure of the U.S. Can you elaborate on that? How bad is it? How aggressive is it? Talk more about not just the Iran.

but other key players and kind of what their, you know, what their game plan is. And, but, you know, how insidious is it? Well, it's pretty insidious. Like I said, the big four have been attacking U.S. critical infrastructure, lodging what's called probe attacks where they want to get in and be able to just lurk there. You know, the technical term is maintained persistence. So that it'd be because some, every, any kind of future war or conflict is primarily in the West going to be fought in cyber.

It's going to be denying the things that we need and love to be happy as humans. You know, our power, our gas, our water. Look, we got to talk about what we just learned about, which has been this progressing story right now. And this goes back to Chinese espionage, an attack group called Salt Typhoon that apparently, for the last year or two, has been lurking in at least eight U.S. telecom providers. So that's your phone in your pocket. It's quite possible that as you made a call or sent to text, Chinese spies have been reading it. And in fact, even though we know about it,

and now we know that they've been there for a year or two, the U.S. can't kick them out. They're using part of the telecom infrastructure that allows government agencies like the FBI to use backdoors and when they have warrants to get phone information. They're going to exploit that using different methods and cyber attacks and get in and steal some of this information. So they're linked to Chinese government. They're Chinese government spies. And they're stealing information from telecom networks. They've stolen plenty of data. And they're going to use it for espionage and potentially downstream disruptive purposes. You know, if there's a crises or a conflict, they can use this information.

Is there a connection between with Salt Typhoon and what they have been against? staged in and effect that for years now, uh, regional telecoms providers in the U ofS have been buying, uh, because it's low cost, buying Chinese hardware, uh, to, uh, to use in their telecom systems.

You know, is it, is that, or is that just, look, they're, they're doing whatever they can to get within our systems and to access whatever information is possible. Right. Well, I don't think it's legal, we can't legally buy, like US companies can't legally buy certain, Chinese, you know, telecom or communications hardware. And they shouldn't be buying a lot of it.

And I didn't see that we don't know the exact way that they got in, but we do know that they got in. And what's been revealed right now is they leverage known security flaws in telecom telecom networks. Now how do they do it? They probably used a combination of attacking employees. You can do that through spearfishing. You can attack unpatched flaws. It's quite possible that there is some technology that China has gotten into the network. I mean, these are massive infrastructure networks. You know, China has been known to put chips and routers that are built in China and the U.S. uses, and now you've got a spy living in your home because you bought that brand the router.

I don't know if you can see it, but I've got my shocked face on right now, Eric. Yes, well, be shocked because this is this is espionage. This is the bread and butter of espionage to get a list of spice to compromise. Exactly. And this is a masterclass for an espionage. Listen, I got to tell you said, this has been really great. And you've been a very good friend of the show. I hope you'll pick up the phone the next time we call.

Eric O'Neill, former FBI, counterintelligence operative, founding part of the Georgetown group. Thank you, man, for joining us today. day and I hope to see you again here soon. Yeah, you're very welcome in any time. I love the show. Yeah, man, I tell you what, between our conversations about Syria and our conversations about cybersecurity and protecting your information

and out of the U.S. government and other countries, well, maybe next weekend we'll have a cheery conversation, right? That's all the time we've got for the PDB situation report. It's been a delight to bring this weekend show to you from

London, England. next week, we'll be bringing it to you from the Middle East, from an undisclosed location. But now, listen, if you have any questions or comments, I want you to reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. It's always, always a happy day at the PDB's secret layer when Carl the mailman drops off this mailbag chock full of your questions and comments. And then what happens is our mailroom takes the most interesting and also the most bizarre questions and comments. And we smush them together into what we call our monthly Ask Me Anything episodes. Also, to listen to the podcast, add free, right?

Well, you know what to do. Just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by simply visiting PDB Premium.com. I told you it was very simple. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, from some location, somewhere in the world, stay informed, stay safe. Stay cool.

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