Summer vacation is the best time to get some well-deserved rest, spend time with family and friends, and maybe get some repairs done around the house. It’s also a great time to catch up on some reading and learning.
Here are Vircom’s recommended books on Cybersecurity for your backyard and beach reading. Enjoy!
Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier (available on Amazon)
Bruce Schneier is the closest our industry comes to having a rock star. He was hard to miss at RSA this year in his bright purple sport coat! Bruce has strong credentials in cryptography, computer security and privacy.
Liars and Outliers reaches across academic disciplines to develop an understanding of trust, cooperation, and social stability. From the subtle social cues that we use to recognize trustworthy people to the laws that punish the noncompliant, from the way our brains reward our honesty to the bank vaults that keep out the dishonest, keeping people cooperative is a delicate balance of rewards and punishments. It’s a series of evolutionary tricks, social pressures, legal mechanisms, and physical barriers.
Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier (available on Amazon)
The powers that surveil us do more than simply store information about us. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.
Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You’ll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.
So, paranoid yet?
Future Crimes by Marc Goodman (available on Amazon)
One of the world’s leading authorities on global security, Marc Goodman takes readers deep into the digital underground to expose the alarming ways criminals, corporations, and even countries are using new and emerging technologies against you—and how this makes everyone more vulnerable than ever imagined.
Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways, but there is an ominous flip side: our technology can be turned against us. Hackers can activate baby monitors to spy on families, thieves are analyzing social media posts to plot home invasions, and stalkers are exploiting the GPS on smart phones to track their victims’ every move. We all know today’s criminals can steal identities, drain online bank accounts, and wipe out computer servers, but that’s just the beginning. To date, no computer has been created that could not be hacked—a sobering fact given our radical dependence on these machines for everything from our nation’s power grid to air traffic control to financial services.
Yet, as ubiquitous as technology seems today, just over the horizon is a tidal wave of scientific progress that will leave our heads spinning.
Feeling better yet?
Spam Nation by Brian Krebs ( available on Amazon)
Brian Krebs is a name that many of you are probably already familiar with. Commonly known as a leading cybersecurity investigative journalist and for his popular cyber security blog, Krebs on Security. Brian Krebs is no stranger to the digital underground and the profit-seeking cybercriminals who make billions off malware, spam and fraud.
Spam Nation reveals the motives behind the biggest spam and hacker operations targeting Americans and their bank accounts. Tracing the rise, fall, and alarming resurrection of the digital mafia behind the two largest spam pharmacies―and countless viruses, phishing, and spyware attacks―he delivers the first definitive narrative of the global spam problem and its threat to consumers everywhere.
So, paranoid yet? You should be.
Cybersecurity 101: What you absolutely must know – Volume 1 (available on Amazon)
What cybersecurity mechanisms do you have in place at home to protect your family and at work to protect critical data? Do you suffer from Nephophobia? Do you know what that is? How do you analyze a link and automatically know if it carries a virus that will corrupt your computer for easy access to hackers? What is spear phishing? Is your business a potential victim of a DDoS attack? You’ve heard about Zero Days but what are they? This book covers this and much more in an intentionally easy to read and recall format so that your online activity from email and password creation to web browsing and filling out online forms can be done in a secure manner. After reading this book series, basic cybersecurity will be second nature and your newly found cybersecurity hygiene will rub off on your family and peers.
This book covers topics such as: how to defend against Pwning, common Nephephobia, how to avoid being a victim to phishing attacks, overcoming DDOS attacks, how to block Zero Day exploits, how to thwart clickjacking, how to detect and protect against Malware and much more. Online courses that cover the topics in this series sell for $100’s of dollars. The author will take your hand and walk you through these technical topics so that on the conclusion of each book, you’ll have a working and virtually automatic comprehension of its contents.
Paranoid again?
Cybersecurity 101: What you absolutely must know – Volume 2 (available on Amazon)
Not all hackers are bad but those who have malicious intent are typically categorized as script kiddies, hacktivists, mercenaries or state sponsored. Each group carries with it a different motivation, target to breach and data it seeks to exfiltrate. Script kiddies will typically wreak sporadic techno-chaos using cut and paste scripting methods from content they find on deep web hacker forums. Hacktivists usually target organizations of affiliates who are aligned with other organizations and affiliates that this category of hacker-activists deem ethically or economically corrupt or sided with the wrong side of group ideology. Mercenary hackers will typically be part of a criminal enterprise who seeks financial gain for their activity and can work for crime syndicates or state sponsors. And finally state sponsored hackers will work for a government and target specific organizations and data for espionage and political motivation. These organizations, though diverse in technological capability and motivation are always quick to prey on the ill-prepared and vulnerable and in many cases will pass over those with solid cybersecurity hygiene for easier targets.
Feeling better again?
Seriously, there is no better defense against cyber-attacks and cybercrime than education, both your own and that of your users and employees. So called sophisticated attacks take advantage mostly of our ignorance and naiveté. After reading these books and sharing your new knowledge you will have made yourself, your users and your company more secure.
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