Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks by Scott J. Shapiro

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Accessible history of computer viruses, botnets and other malevolent creations of the internet era.

Shapiro is very good at tracing the common themes through over fifty years of hacks. One thing in particular that stood out was it is almost always disgruntled young men: either in Eastern Europe or some American suburb. When the FBI was hunting for the people behind the notorious Mirai botnet, they were looking for Russian or Chinese hackers (with just cause), not realising it was a trio of American teenagers. Shapiro notes how these young men don't consider what they do as malicious and generally "age out" of the activity. It would be interesting to more fully explore the sociological and psychological background of this cohort.

I also liked the book's distinction between "upcode" (the social norms that govern our behaviour) and "downcode" (the computer code directing the hardware to do its job).
All-in-all, a worthwhile read, especially if you are new to the cyber-security field.



View all my reviews