ADVISORY/Homeland Security Director, Governor Tom Ridge, Comments On the Recent Attempt to Hack Into the 13 Computers That Run Traffic On the Internet.

Business Editors

--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2002

DATE:  October 23, 2002
NETWORK: CNBC
PROGRAM: "Capital Report with Alan Murray and Tyler Mathisen"
(Tues. - Thurs. 9-10 p.m. ET)

    The following is a partial and unofficial transcript from this
evening's program. Complete transcripts will be available 10/24.

    ALAN MURRAY (co-host of CNBC's "Capital Report with Alan Murray
and Tyler Mathisen"): Gov. Ridge, let me start, if I can, by asking
you about this story that came out last night about an attempt to hack
into the 13 computers that run traffic on the Internet. Is that
something we should be concerned about?

    GOVERNOR TOM RIDGE (Homeland Security Director): "Well, I think it
is certainly something that we should be concerned about because our
economy relies so heavily on our access and use to the Internet. But
there's really a lot of good news associated with that attempt to
disrupt the Internet. The fact that the 13 companies have redundancies
and ways to deal with that surge of information. The good news is that
the federal government was monitoring it all along, as well. We were
aware of it when it was occurring. And that once the federal
government as well as the private sector has been alerted to the
possibility of this kind of contamination and disruption, they would
have been prepared, had they needed to take other measures to combat
it. But they didn't."

    MURRAY: Who did it? Who do we think did it, and what did they do?

    RIDGE: "Well, we're trying right now to trace it back to the point
of origin. Whether or not we're ever able successfully to complete the
journey all the way to the points of origin -- obviously, there were
more than one -- remains to be seen. But we have begun an
investigation to see if we can determine that."

    MURRAY: There are hackers out there and there are terrorists out
there. Do we have evidence -- do you have evidence -- that terrorists
are using cyber tactics and going after the Internet? Or is it mostly
just hackers?

    RIDGE: "Well, I think we have evidence that the terrorists that
we're dealing with -- particularly al Qaeda, but obviously there are
other potential terrorist organizations out there -- understand one,
how critically dependent the world is, the marketplace is and we are
in this country, on the Internet; two, that some of them do have -- we
may have trained them in this country or certainly have been part of
their education -- there's some level of sophistication. But we don't
have any evidence that suggests, necessarily, that surge last
night -- very complicated attack, unsuccessful, I might add -- was the
work of any terrorist group or anybody that we can relate to terrorist
activity."

    MURRAY: So the surge happened last night? The surge happened
Tuesday night or Monday night?

    RIDGE: "Tuesday night."

    All references must be sourced "CNBC's Capital Report"