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Russian Hackers Steal 1.2 Billion Passwords; King Confronted by Dreamers; Spacecraft's Close Encounter with Comet; Harmful Bacteria in Water

Aired August 06, 2014 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

There's one big reason you may want to update your computer passwords today. How big? 1.2 billion -- that's with a b. That's how many user names and passwords have been stolen by a group of Russian mobsters. A security firm says this could be the biggest digital credentials heist ever.

Let's talk about this with CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik along with CNN technology analyst Brett Larson and CNN technology correspondent Laurie Segall at a cyber security conference in Las Vegas.

Alison I want to start with you though, who are these Russian mobsters?

ALISON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: If you look at who they are, you can track these hackers back to a small town in central Russia of about less than half a dozen young men in their 20s. And they started out as simple spammers and now they've kind of grown a bit.

But the good news here is that it doesn't look like that they've gotten or tried to get into anybody's bank accounts. What it looks like that they've been doing is really just sending out bogus advertisements, spam. They've been getting a-hold of 1.2 billion user name and password combinations, 500 million e-mails, using that information to kind of hijack maybe your e-mail and send out let's say something on weight loss pills. It looks more legit.

So let's say I'm your friend. I think we're friends. And you get an e-mail from me about weight loss pills, you're more likely to open that than from someone you don't know. So the idea here is that they went ahead and sent out this spam not just through e-mail but through social media as well including Twitter to make it look more legit. And apparently they've gotten a financial return of some sort on sending --

COSTELLO: I was just going to ask you, do they make money? Some company has to pay them for doing that, right?

KOSIK: Right. The thinking is that they did get kickbacks when sending out these spams. The concern here is that the head of the security that discovered all this, his worry is that with all of this information that this group has gathered that's they're up to something more nefarious. Luckily so far, there's no evidence of that.

COSTELLO: Ok. So Laurie -- let's head to Las Vegas, shall we. You're at this hacker convention, Laurie. Is it all the talk there?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Look, it's just beginning but a lot of folks are talking about this. The idea, first of all, the idea that right now they're spamming and doing this kind of stuff, but they could actually sell this information on the black market. And that's where we're talking identity theft and that's where things really get bad.

And I've got to tell you Carol, there's a little bit of tension sometimes here when you talk to these hackers who are also security researchers who are trying to do this research for good. They oftentimes go to the companies and what's even more unprecedented is the fact that this went on and these companies didn't know and that these vulnerabilities are still there.

These hackers can still take information. And a lot of times -- and what we're seeing here in Las Vegas that black hat. These security researches have these powers. And I almost say that's almost like Batman. They can use them for good and use them for bad. They try to take these powers and use them for good and go to a lot of these companies and say, hey, there are vulnerabilities in your Web site. You need to fix it.

A lot of times, just because you've got these -- these sort of researchers, the big companies ignore it and you're beginning to see that there are major ramifications there, Carol.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. And Brett, I want to ask you about this because these Russian mobsters are hacking into companies, but nobody is naming who those companies are. I, frankly, want to know.

BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: You do. You do want to know who it is and they're actually smart for keeping it quiet for now because what they're hopefully doing is going to these individual companies and saying, listen, you were one of the targets, your security has been breached, your data has been breached. Do whatever you need to do to protect yourself, rebuild your fire wall, put in extra layers of protections and then go to your users and say, it's that time again. It's time to change your passwords.

What's interesting about all the spam that they're sending out, and why, this may just be a big, bad case of spam that we're all about to get sent from each other. Surprisingly, that stuff is still very valuable. You get about a 30 percent return on sending out the weight loss pills. And the Nigerian president who wants to give you $1 million. People fall for that. so it makes sense that they're still trying.

KOSIK: Just something so anybody watching those -- although this information isn't being put out there right now about which Web sites and which e-mails. The security firm that discovered this, Hold Security, says he's going to go ahead and put up on his Web site a way for you to get on there and see if your e-mail was hacked. That's going to be coming soon.

LARSON: And change your passwords.

COSTELLO: So that's the best advice: change your passwords.

LARSON: Keep them changed every few months. You'll be fine -- ish.

COSTELLO: Brett Larson, Alison Kosik, Laurie Segall -- many thanks.

Still to come, an outspoken congressman comes face-to-face with a member of the Dreamers generation and it isn't pretty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: So you decide that it's ok then to violate the law?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. To run away from someone that was hurting me? And that was hurting --

KING: I'm really sorry that you come from a lawless country. I hope that you can have a happy life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, thank you, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But please, do not erode the rule of law in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: More of this exchange next.

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COSTELLO: Talk about awkward. Iowa representative Steve King found himself in a rather tense exchange over immigration when he was approached by two undocumented activists at a fundraiser for Senator Rand Paul in Iowa. It all starts with a young woman named she's asking King why he wants to get rid of DACA which stands of deferred action per childhood arrivals or dreamers.

Now these are young people, born in the United States, to illegal immigrants. They've never lived anywhere else but in this country. As you know some Republicans like King wants them deported take a look at what transpired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm actually a dreamer myself. I'm originally from Mexico but I've been raised here. I graduated from a university actually -- Arizona State University. And I know you want to get rid of us. We want to give you the opportunity if you really want to get rid us. You can go ahead and do that. You take my DACA you're going to take really everything that right now I have accomplished. I did graduate from college. You can go ahead and take that.

I just don't understand why you've been wanting to do that. For you to be fighting against the dreamers, calling us names --

KING: I didn't call you names. No, no. Please, please. Stop a minute. You're very good in English.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was raised in the United States.

KING: Right. So you understand the English language. So don't play games.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not acting like I don't understand.

KING: You are because you're saying something that is not true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ok, what is not true?

KING: I spoke of drug smugglers. You're not going to tell me you're one of them, are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do I look like a drug smuggler to you?

KING: That's right. You can tell me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Ok. So it went on from there. Now you'll notice that at first the dreamers meet both Rand Paul and Steve King. Paul shakes their hands, takes a bite of his burger and then he quickly exits. He's whisked away by staffers to talk to reporters. That empty chair pretty much sums up how people feel about congress about lawmakers these days.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that for the first time in 25 years, more than 50 percent of voters disapprove of how their own representative is handling his or her job in Congress which echoes with Twitter and Facebook users say. When asked by CNN to describe congress in one word, the most popular word is "useless". Let's talk about all of this.

Joining me now, Kevin Madden, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator; and Dana Bash, our chief congressional correspondent -- welcome.

KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning -- Carol.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So Dana, let's just talk a little about this confrontation between Steve King and this dreamer. Do these tactics work with lawmakers?

BASH: We're talking about it, so I think -- and we've just played a lot of it. By the way, it goes on for seven minutes. I watched the whole thing, and it was cringe worthy, I have to say. So, yes, in that way they do work in that the whole point of this woman's confrontation was for her to try to put a public face, an actual human face on a policy that Steve King has.

Now, I just want to give a little bit of the context of what she was talking about. Just Friday, this past Friday before congress left for recess, about midnight they took a vote on a measure that was sponsored by Steve King to get rid of DACA which you described, to do away with the executive order that the president signed that allows people like her to stay in this country even though they came here at a young age illegally. In that sense, he kind of out-cruzed Ted Cruz because he went even further and it passed. It passed by a huge majority.

The reason why that happened is because Steve King and a handful of other conservatives who very much believe in this as you just saw, they wouldn't allow the 600-something million dollar amount of money that the President or that's what they were going to give. To pass, to help the crisis at the border and the crises at the border unless this bill also passed the House. That's sort of the background there.

But you know, look, the bottom line is that you said that members of congress aren't liked by their constituents. The issue here is that most -- I would venture to say most of Steve King's constituents actually do agree with what he did and they're probably applauding him for this confrontation and standing his ground.

COSTELLO: That's right. He had no problem with his own constituency, right. So Kevin, I guess I'll just ask the question. Is this likely to change Steve King's mind?

MADDEN: Absolutely not. Look, Dana is right in that these type of tactics where you ambush a politician and you get them on the record saying -- having a confrontation like this, they may work to get noticed for the issue, but that woman in the video in no way changed Steve King's mind. He is a very passionate anti-immigration issues; I mean he believes very much in immigration reform but he's very focused on more of the enforcement issues. And it's not likely to change his mind. This is something that makes for good TV, but like Dana said, Steve King's constituents are applauding him. Many people who are watching this debate, it's like a Rorschach stats test. The people who are against Steve King, they applaud the woman. The people who were for Steve King. Or Steve King applaud him.

COSTELLO: although I want to go back to the Soul for Justice second because for the first time in 25 years, 51 percent of people disapprove of their own representative. That's unusual because people have long had a disapproval rating of congress as a whole, but they always kind of liked their guy, not so much this time.

Go ahead Dana. BASH: That's right. Hate congress, love your congressman. You know, I've covered congress for a long time. Kevin worked up there for a long time so he certainly knows the dynamic as well. It is different. You're absolute right. The so he certainly knows the dynamic as well. It is different, you're absolutely right.

The problem is -- or the question I should say is whether or not there is a challenger that's going to be better than the person who is there. Right now you have a dynamic where most of the people who are in Congress come from districts that have been redistricted and their biggest threat of a challenge is more from the right or the left because their district is so Republican or Democratic rather than somebody who is going to be challenged from the other party.

So their incentive is to bank right or bank left depending if they're a Republican or a Democrat, not to move towards the middle and the middle is compromised. So that is part of the issue. I mean it's so incredibly complicated but that I think is a big part of why people are so incredibly frustrated with because the incentive is congress. The incentive is the opposite of compromise. If they want to stay in office, they have to be even more partisan.

COSTELLO: go ahead Kevin Madden last word, then I got to go.

MADDEN: Dana is right. People right now are so sick of the status quo and that poll really reflects it.

COSTELLO: It does. Thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

KING: Nice to be with you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, rendezvous in space. For the first time ever a spacecraft called Rosetta gets extremely closed to a comment and this is just the beginning. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: It is the kind of stuff that Hollywood loves, astronauts landing on an asteroid to save the world, you know, just like in the movie "Armageddon".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: They did it. Well now, in reality, we're a little closer to kind of making that happen with the first mission to actually land on a comet. Today is the first step.

The spacecraft Rosetta just caught up to the comet which it's been chasing for more than a decade. So let's talk about this. Chris Hatfield is an astronaut and a former commander of the International Space Station. Welcome.

CHRIS HATFIELD, ASTRONAUT: Thanks very much, Carol. Glad to talk with you today.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're here because I'm trying to figure out how you can land anything on a comet because it's composed of ice and dust then when it passes the sun it develops a long tail, so how is that possible?

HATFIELD: That's one of the reasons we're there, Carol, is to try and figure that out. Right now the comet is in between Jupiter and Mars and it's falling towards the sun. It's taken us ten years to catch up with it.

This little spacecraft let earth over ten years ago and it's come around earth a few times and went around Bars, but finally it's just sneaking into orbit next to this comet. In a little while it's going to fire a little lander to come down. A lander that weighs about the same as a big guy -- weighs about 220 pounds. It will land on the surface and try to figure out what comets are made of.

COSTELLO: Why is that important?

HATFIELD: Well, there are a whole bunch of reasons of course. The history of the earth. The earth is three quarters covered in water. Where did the water come from? We think maybe because comets seem to be mostly water or significantly water. Maybe the earth is the result of billions of years of comic impact.

And if we're going to get impacted by an comet, we really want to know what it's made of, could we deflect one, what's the substance. Also, the stuff that on comets is full of amino acids and organic molecules, kind of the basic building blocks of life. There's a lot more that we don't know about know about comments -- way more than we do know. And by putting this probe, this pro-Rosetta probe around it and landing something on the surface, we're going to unlock a lot of history of the planet earth itself and maybe understand some of our future, also.

COSTELLO: Awesome. Thank you so much for explaining, it's very clear now. Chris Hatfield, thank you so much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: For millions of people along the East Coast enjoying the Chesapeake Bay when it's hot is the perfect recipe for summer but a harmful bacteria could threaten anyone who tries to enjoy the water. It's called vibrio and it can enter your body through a cut and if not treated it can lead to amputation or even death. The bacteria can be found in oysters. While beachcombing a Texas woman stepped on an oyster shell which sliced through one that sliced through her shoe and she became infected.

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MICHELLE O'BRIEN: The only reason I still have my foot attached to me is because I got those early antibiotics in. People don't realize it's not just on oysters. This bacteria is in the water. If it were a small child or an older person or somebody that's not in tip-top shape, it is absolutely deadly.

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COSTELLO: Ok, scary, right? Let's talk about that. Joining me is Dr. Clifford Mitchell the director of the environmental health bureau with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Also our meteorologist, Indra Petersons is here. Welcome to both of you.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

DR. CLIFFORD MITCHELL, MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE: good morning.

COSTELLO: So doctor -- good morning. This sounds really scary. How afraid should we be?

MITCHELL: Well, it's important to put this in perspective. Here in Maryland, we may see anywhere from 30 to 50 infections from Vibrio this. All told over a year, think about the tens of thousands of people who visit the beach. And this is not just affecting the Chesapeake Bay as we send Indra, This is affecting other areas as well.

PETERSONS: That's definitely the concern. You have to remember though, it is a naturally occurring bacteria. This is not environmental. This is not coming from pollution guys and they are There are 80 strands out there. Not all of them are harmful.

That being said, it's the same family as cholera -- Carol. So that's why it's just a scare thing. And as far as where we can find it, keep in mind, it's a combination of these three factors. Water temperature -- when it's warmer, that's not a good thing. Salinity. Also powerful. It's not as simple though as the more of any of these you get, the more bacteria are you going to get.

All of these different regions have different amounts in them. It's not like, oh, hey it's warmer here, this is a dangerous spot. Not the case. That's why there's an environmental models out there right now trying to get the forecast. It is definitely not experimental stage but eventually, eventually, hopefully we're going to get all that information out there so you have a better idea. One, you want to go some place or not. So for nose which what you need to know these places are prone to it. These are the spots that I have seen already this year. Chesapeake Bay, Sarasota, Florida and Galveston Bay -- and this is just the paper that we've seen some of these operate. This summer, of course, there's been other occurrences out there.

What you want to do is you need to stick to these basics because what you need is that that experimental information to be to be given to you by the Public Health Advisories. That's the best way you're going to know to know whether or not there's an outbreak right now.

You know what you have to do. You don't want to swim 48 hours after a rain storm. Talk about contamination out there. Avoid blue/green algae. Do I need to say this -- I would say that's an obvious shower up (inaudible). And please do not go in the water if you have an open wound.

COSTELLO: Ok. So I'm sure you would say that that's great advice. What be oysters? We talked about this woman stepping on an oyster shell and she had a cut in her foot and this bacteria affected her. Should we be eating oysters?

Well, again, remember we have tens of -- hundreds of thousands of people who eat oysters all the time. It's very important though, any raw or undercooked seafood has the potential for having a bacteria contamination. There are a couple of things to remember. One is, there are people who are more vulnerable to this kind of disease -- people with liver disease, people with immune conditions.

You want to make sure that if you are one of those risk groups, that you think twice before consuming raw or undercooked seafood. For the rest of the folks, you really want to know what it is that you're buying. You want to be careful when you consume seafood, that you handle it properly. Avoid or minimize the points of contamination.

And always think carefully

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So hopefully you got enough of that in. Just be careful and be aware. Dr. Clifford Mitchell, Indra Petersons thanks to you both.

And thank you for joining me today.

I'm Carol Costello, "@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.