Don Mihalek from ABC News on thwarted NYC telecommunications threat

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's something I've heard nothing about anywhere. I've just it
hit me this afternoon. Secret Service beliefs it may have
thwarted a plot that could have dismantled New York City's
telecommunications network, which is something that terrifies me. After we
lost cell phones and so forth during what was it Katrina,
people went nuts. If you can't talk to one another,

(00:21):
you get a little crazy. So this is a big deal.
Don Mahelleck from ABC News joining us right now. He's
a law enforcement contributor and a retired senior Secret Service agent,
so it's good to have you on board. Don, How
are you okay? Well, I've heard nothing about this. Did
they keep this story under wraps because you would think
that would be a big headline.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well it is today. The Secret Service had been conducting
an investigation, protective threat investigation because the director and some
other Secret Service protectors were receiving anonymous threats, and the
investigation led them to this area within Brooklyn, New York,
where they uncovered empty apartments containing data servers, SIM cards,

(01:07):
hundreds of thousands of them, and empty apartments a couple
of them in this area almost in the shadow of Manhattan.
So they dismantled the devices, brought them back to doing
a forensic investigation now, but the the scope and size
of the threat that disposed to not only New York

(01:28):
City's telecommunic CASS communications set up, because it could make
one sim card can make millions of calls potentially also
to other areas of the country, which could lead to
the denial of service attacks and taking over the cell
phone towers. So it's a pretty significant discovery, and it's

(01:49):
a pretty significant case, and it's a pretty significant disruption.
The question is, of course, where does the investigation go
and where else are cells like this set up?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
And who are the people in these sales? I mean,
is this do we know yet? Are they saying it?
Is this strictly a domestic thing? Is this? Is there
some international influence here? How's it?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
They're saying there's some potential foreign actors involved, including China,
some state sponsors. Because of the size and scope of this.
You know, normally with these cell phone things, you find
a kid in the basement, right in this case, you
found empty apartments out of adjacent Bourne movie or a
twenty four episode where nothing but data service and data

(02:34):
racks and simcards. One hundred thousand of them, and you
know each one is capable of making millions of phone calls.
And you know you were talking about Katrina before in
New York City on nine to eleven, and when it
had a blackout a couple of years later, cell phone
service was completely stopped. You couldn't make a phone call
in New York City, which Cansas City into utter confusion.

(02:56):
And the other thing I point out is a lot
of things these days reliance cell phones, not only including
law enforcement radios. A lot of law en persent radios
can work off of Wi Fi network or a cell
phone network, and it could completely dismantle that or take
it over. Is a critical national security issue. And with

(03:18):
the UN and Session, with all these protectees there, who
all have cell phones, who are all making phone calls,
to have the ability to intercept all those calls by
taking over a cell phone tower and then rerouting those
calls or using AI to change the context of those
calls could have international.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Implications, Yes, and in ramifications for all of us for
not being ready for it. This is Don Mahullick by
the way, from ABC News. Don I mean you know
the three and at least in my opinion. The three
things that are so possible and so scary when it
comes to people who want to do large scale destruction.
One are electrical grid We go to the darkness where

(04:00):
in trouble to absolutely our communications. As you pointed out
September eleventh, when that happened, I'm in Columbus, Ohio, I
could not call home. I'm pretty sure the government just
shut down cellular communications because they didn't know who the
bad guys were or where they were. And the third,
of course, you know, the idea of a suitcase nuke
will always terrify me. This is like the top three

(04:21):
thing or in the list of top three things that
I think we should really worry about. If we can't
talk to one another, we don't know how to coordinate
to defend ourselves. And that's a very frightening concept.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Absolutely, And considering also that you know, we just had
the Chinese just had a assault typhoon, which was a
virus that they used to infect cellular companies that basically
impacted Senate and House members telephones. They were able to
intercept Senate House members telephones because of this virus that

(04:56):
they inserted into some of the cell phone companies so
think of out a foreign actor having access to some
of our most sensitive communications or sensitive secrets. Basically, it
puts them a step ahead of everything we do.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Absolutely, and you know, every human being is vulnerable to
their own screw ups. Who knows what may be discussed
on those telecophone conversations that could put put them in
some sort of compromising position where the Chinese could utilize
them to get something they want. That's people are always
going to be people, no matter how advanced we think
we are, and that's a very dangerous thing.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
And I think the lesson Chuck for us here in
America is a lot of people walk around the United
States and think, you know, our oceans and walls protect us,
which was a lesson, which was a dream that was
disrupted on nine to eleven. I think this puts a
foreign state actor on US soil conducting basically espionage against

(05:52):
the United States, which is why they brought in the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence with this case.
You know, every America and needs to be mindful that
there are you know, counter espionage things going on in
the United States and not be blind to this threat
coming from overseas state actors.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Absolutely, we are being watched always, and we never know
by whom. Don Mahallak, thank you very much for bringing
this to our attention, and I'm assuming just your nature
as a retired senior Secret Service agent, you're probably going
to hang on to this like a dog in a bone,
So keep us up to date if anything further develops.