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CNN Live At Daybreak

Microsoft's New Issue: Interview of Bill Gates on Cyberterrorism

Aired October 25, 2001 - 08:22   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The terrorist attacks on America are forcing us all to reevaluate all of the places where we might be vulnerable.

In an editorial a few days ago, "The New York Times" wrote, "One of the ironies of the Information Age is that the most technologically sophisticated nations are more susceptible to attack."

The "Times" calls for the government to do more to protect against cyberterrorism, but admits a major problem, saying, quote, "One of the difficulties in protecting the digital realm is that the government is not manning the front lines. Whether it belongs to Con Edison or Verizon, most of the critical infrastructure that needs protecting is in private hands."

One of the biggest of those private hands, of course, is that of Microsoft, not only the world's biggest software maker, but also the owner of a major Internet provider, MSN.

For his perspective on cyberterrorism, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates joins me now. He just also happens to be in town today to unveil his company's new software, XP.

Good morning. Delighted to have you with us this morning, Bill.

BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN, MICROSOFT: Good morning.

ZAHN: First of all, before we talk to you about this new product that you came to town to launch, how real do you think this threat of cyberterrorism is?

GATES: I'm not sure exactly how people use the term. There is definitely a need to focus in on increasing security and reliability of these networks. Fortunately, the basic design of the Internet is very distributed, so that there's no one place that's the master control that can take out the entire network.

There are lots of things that can be done to authenticate packets, to monitor packets, to get rid of software vulnerabilities, and those are important. I'd say even without the terrorism threat, there are the kinds of improvements that we need to make go hand in hand with the desire to do e-commerce. That is to have all the business communication flows via across the Internet. ZAHN: So is there an active plan under way to have companies, such as yours and other companies in your industry, address these issues so some changes can be made? "The New York Times" made the argument that the government isn't on the front lines, because most of these companies are controlled by private hands here.

GATES: Well, that's true of most critical infrastructures -- you know, the water infrastructure, the electricity infrastructure. There's nothing new about this communications infrastructure -- voice, in the past, and data, at this point -- being in private hands.

There are government bodies that Microsoft and other industry players are involved in, like InStack, that meet and discuss exactly these issues. As I said, the fundamental design of the Internet is very good for these things, but there's a few more layers that need to be put on, so that we can have the kind of assuredness that the network will be there, even in crisis.

ZAHN: Has there been any sort of system put in place that will make it less likely that a Melissa virus will have less impact down the road than it originally did?

GATES: The key with the viruses is there's two ways to stop them. One is to have the antidote get out ahead of the problem. And that's now built into this next version of Windows, called Windows Update, where everybody in a simple, silent way can get continuous improvement, including whatever security improvements are going out, and they can get that rapidly enough that that will get out ahead of the virus propagation.

The other thing is the basic reliability testing in the software itself, and that's something that we're taking to new levels. We've got a dramatic advance with the XP.

ZAHN: So there's been so much speculation that if a terrorist really wanted to do some damage in this country during a blizzard, what they do is get into a computer and either throw a virus into it, or somehow hackers would get into a system and shut down the power grids for major cities and tamper with some other things on line. Do you see that as an unlikely scenario?

GATES: I don't know which one you're referring to. I'm not an expert on the power grid, but there's no command on the Internet that shuts down the power grid. And, you know, part of the beauty of the Internet is we constantly have somewhat benign people looking at are there any holes, and based on that, there's a constant focus on fixing these things.

There's no higher priority for us in terms of having experts 24 hours a day than closing any security problem that comes along. And I think the industry awareness of that, the kind of forums we have with the government on that have been increased. Even in the last few months, I'd say, although there was a lot going on, there's an even higher importance assigned to it.

So we need to stay vigilant on all of these things. I'd be irresponsible to say that there is not ongoing investment required in it, but that's to keep the probability of anything like that at a very low level.

ZAHN: You continue to be in negotiations with the government about your antitrust case. Are you hopeful that some sort of compromise will be reached?

GATES: We're putting all of our energy into that, working very hard on it. And I'm very pleased that we've got this new phase of discussions. We've always said that we think settlement is probably the best outcome here, in the sense of government resources not continuing to be spent and having Microsoft focus in on things, like getting new products out.

So I wouldn't assign odds, but we're putting our best energy in, and we hope that a settlement is achieved.

ZAHN: And what happens if you don't achieve a settlement?

GATES: Well, then we're back...

ZAHN: What would be the impact of that?

GATES: Then we're back into a court process during the course of the next calendar year.

ZAHN: Tell us a little bit this morning about the challenge of launching this new product in this post-September 11 environment. We've all been tracking the Nasdaq stocks very closely here. We know the technology stocks are in a slump. What is your challenge today as you try to get this product off the ground and sold?

GATES: The main slump around technology has to do with the sort of Internet bubble or mania that drove things to record levels. Tech stocks over the last, say, two or three months have been at about the same point.

The key thing here is that it's the real innovations that actually have driven the computer industry to its record levels, the idea that you can take a PC and do new things with it. And here, whether it's real-time communications or the speed, or the consumer scenarios like photos and music, we're creating a platform that not only has what we call new experiences built in, but also creates opportunity for third parties.

So definitely, this is a key element of the technology industries getting reenergized and putting productivity back into other sectors of the economy, that can get the economy back to where it was a couple of years ago.

ZAHN: I know the mayor of New York is delighted you are here. I understand there was talk of delaying the product launch. The city is quite delighted that you made the commitment to come to the city at this time of our struggle.

Mr. Gates, thank you very much for dropping by CNN this morning. GATES: Thank you.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time.

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