2022: Greg Able explains Berkshire's approach to cyber security.

GREG ABEL: Warren, do you want me to touch on the cyber?

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, yeah, sure.

GREG ABEL: Yeah, I’ll just touch on the cyber because it was raised.

And when you do think of Berkshire and they use Berkshire Hathaway Energy as a reference.

But cyberrisk, and managing that risk, both at Berkshire, really falls across all of our subsidiaries.

And it’s a constant risk that’s there. It’s one of our greatest risks we’re always evaluating and trying to literally defend against.

And if we use Berkshire Hathaway Energy as an example, we would receive billions of attacks every day against our various operating systems.

So that’s basically what our team is in place for: both-- they harden the assets to deflect it, and then evaluating the underlying attacks we have, you know, every second of the day.

And, by the way, that would — we’d have a number of operating subsidiaries that experience that. But, obviously, it’s the rail, and the energy, and a few others that we spend a lot of time on, a lot of effort, a lot of resources.

And the good news is that through to today, our teams have done an exceptional job, we really haven’t had a significant event. We’ve had some minor events at small businesses, but across our major businesses, across our major operating systems, we’ve had the proper security protocol in place to avoid events.

But, again, it never stops. Our team would tell you that, every day, that’s a risk they recognize and a risk they’re addressing within the businesses.

So, a significant risk, but a significant priority for all of our operating teams.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, and I would add one thing, I think. Greg knows way more about this than I do, but my impression, from everything I’ve seen, is that, you know, you always have — you know, historically, the private industry has always said the government can’t do anything right, and government always says that private industry is just thinking about itself, all these things.

The truth is, from everything I’ve seen, is that the cooperation between government and business in terms of trying to minimize the threat of cyber problems, I think, has been magnificent, basically.

GREG ABEL: Yeah, excellent point. When it comes to cyber, the collaboration between a variety of U.S. agencies and our individual businesses, it’s incredibly strong.

Including down to certain agencies will submit basically a lot of our operating data on a daily basis, where they’re helping us go through it to identify if we have a bad character, a bad individual who’s maybe penetrated into our system.

So, it’s a strong collaboration. And Warren, you’re absolutely right, it’s very unique to see how both the industry and the government is working so closely. But I think we both recognize it as such a significant risk, we have to stay strongly aligned on the approach.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s a real partnership.

It’s a real partnership. And we can do better because the government is helping us, and the government can do better because we’re helping them, and there’s no lack of will on either side.

And cyber, I mean, it blows your mind. And nuclear is the number one threat, but it’s a very, very, very low probability, you know?

Someday, the sun will burn out, too, you know.

But there’s really no place for two countries with large ICBM possibilities, and who knows what else and everything — but we haven’t figured that out yet. You know.

It’s easy to go around and say, this is the solution or that’s the solution.

But, you know, if you have two people with loaded guns facing each other, and, you know —

CHARLIE MUNGER: And not everybody is likely to be totally rational.

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, we see so much irrational — irrationality in where people’s self-interest is involved, you know, they’re doing all kinds of things to destroy themselves, in terms of how they live their lives, and everything.

And, you know, it doesn’t stop with — (laughs) — as you move up the ladder.

You know, people — some people do terrible things. And you just have to very much hope that they aren’t in a position where they can do it all by themselves with the rest of the world as their supposed prize.