Walking Wounded: Inside the U.S. Cyberwar Machine

by Michael A. Vanputte, Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko (Foreword)

Forget everything you know about crime, war and espionage in cyberspace. Walking Wounded takes the layman to seasoned professional on an insider's journey through the secret history, technologies, and strategies surrounding war and espionage in cyberspace. Walking Wounded is not another hacking book. It takes the reader behind the scenes and recounts the story of the Pentagon's love affair with technology, and how this reliance makes them vulnerable to hackers. It explains how foreign intelligence services, criminals, and amateur hackers have compromised our sensitive systems for three decades, while our government hackers are running rampant through foreign information systems. And it explains how our national policies have made us all less secure. Walking Wounded gives the reader the tools to get beyond the hype, mythologies, and marketing and understand what President Obama called, "The most serious threat to out national security."

228 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2016

About the author

Dr. Michael VanPutte is a strategist, technologist, and author who explores the future of conflict through the intersection of military science and imagination. He served twenty-four years in the U.S. Army, beginning as an infantryman and completing Airborne and Ranger School before commanding combat engineers in combat during Operation Desert Storm. After nearly a decade as a combat engineer officer, he transitioned to cyber operations, serving as Director of the Army AI Center and teaching strategy and technology at the U.S. Army War College, where he helped shape the next generation of senior military leaders. He then served as Deputy Director of Operations for a predecessor to U.S. Cyber Command and as a Program Manager at DARPA, leading advanced research and development initiatives.After retiring from the Army, Dr. VanPutte consulted for the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, and later co-founded Provatek LLC, a defense company specializing in advanced cyber operations. He has taught strategy at the U.S. Army War College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute and computer security at The Ohio State University. He continues to write, lecture, and advise on strategy, technology, and national security, drawing on his experience across kinetic and cyber domains.

Reviews

[Naessens · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one of the reader to review this book, I will try to give a detailed opinion.
First of all, this book is not about hacking and won't teach readers how to penetrate network or protect themselves from high-skilled hackers. For readers interested in these topics, especially the first one, I strongly recommend Hacking: The Art of Exploitation. What Michael A. Vanputte tells us is how the US army and US governmental organizations came to using the so-called Cyberwar machine and why they have kept using it despite knowing that foreign intelligence agencies and individual hackers are stealing enormous data from them.
In the first three chapters, Michael A. Vanputte gives us a little history lesson explaining why and how the US army decided to use Information Technology in operations, the benefits it saw in them and thus deployed them everywhere within its organization unfortunately also opening the door to hackers. Sensitive information should have never been made available online.
In chapters 4 and 5 the definitions of respectively guardians (a.k.a. white hackers) and black hackers are given. Guardians are those responsible for protecting networks, consequently they react to attacks by black hackers and are always one step behind. Governments and security agencies are reluctant to share information about attacks because it informs attackers that their presence is revealed, put into light a weakness in the network that cannot be patched immediately and informs others about the technology used to protect oneself. Chapter 5 also dwells on the the types of attack used by black hackers and the tools they use.
Chapter 6 explains why it is so difficult and often impossible to trace back an attacker, especially the good ones. So don't trust the media gossip about who was responsible for Stuxnet because no one actually knows.
Chapter 7 concerns hacking and the collection of data on a global scale mostly by government agencies.
Starting from chapter 8 and until the last chapters of the book, I found the topics dealt with a bit repetitive. In short, Michael A. Vanputte gives various reason why it is impossible to secure the US army networks due to conflict of interests between agencies and organizations, the assumed loss of data and security breaches that are counter-balanced by the potential benefit they may bring if used against enemies as well as allies (the Coventry argument), the new rules of wargame introduced by global IT networks and the reasons hwy it is so difficult for the US army to adapt to the new types of threat coming along the use of a "Cyberwar machine".
I really liked the numerous anecdotes. Moreover, it was very good to have a quick recap at the end of each chapter.
Nevertheless, as mentioned by other readers, I also noticed this book contains a couple of sentences which do not make any sense. It's probably an edition issue because I found the rest of Michael A. Vanputte's writing mostly clear.