Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global

by Geoff White

On May 4, 2000, an email that read “kindly check the attached LOVELETTER” was sent from a computer in the Philippines. Attached was a virus, the Love Bug, and within days it had been circulated across the globe, paralyzing banks, broadcasters, and businesses in its wake, and extending as far as the UK Parliament and, reportedly, the Pentagon. The outbreak presaged a new era of online mayhem: the age of Crime Dot Com. In this book, investigative journalist Geoff White charts the astonishing development of hacking, from its conception in the United States’ hippy tech community in the 1970s, through its childhood among the ruins of the Eastern Bloc, to its coming of age as one of the most dangerous and pervasive threats to our connected world. He takes us inside the workings of real-life cybercrimes, drawing on interviews with those behind the most devastating hacks and revealing how the tactics employed by high-tech crooks to make millions are being harnessed by nation states to target voters, cripple power networks, and even prepare for cyber-war. From Anonymous to the Dark Web, Ashley Madison to election rigging, Crime Dot Com is a thrilling, dizzying, and terrifying account of hacking, past and present, what the future has in store, and how we might protect ourselves from it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, True Crime, Crime, Politics, Audiobook, History

344 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 10, 2020

About the author

Geoff White is an author, speaker, investigative journalist and podcast creator. He has worked for the BBC, Audible, Penguin, Sky News, The Sunday Times and many more. In a career spanning 20 years he has covered everything from billion-dollar cyber heists to global money laundering rings and crypto-gangsters.

His new book, Rinsed, reveals technology’s impact on the world of money laundering and will be published by Penguin Random House in June 2024.

He has given keynote talks for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Microsoft, HSBC, Mastercard, Atos, Orange and Bank of America.

His last book, The Lazarus Heist – From Hollywood to High Finance: Inside North Korea’s Global Cyber War was published by Penguin Random House in June 2022, and is available now on Amazon, Waterstones, and Bookshop.org. It sprang from the hit 10-part BBC podcast series of the same name, which Geoff co-hosted and which immediately ranked number one in the UK Apple chart and within the top 7 in the US.

An experienced public speaker, he has given keynote talks at some of the UK’s largest conferences, in addition to hosting events and chairing panels at venues ranging from London’s Chatham House think-tank to the Latitude music festival.

Geoff’s first book, Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global, was published in August 2020 by Reaktion Books and was described as “a fascinating, often gripping read”.

He has written and presented two major podcast series for Audible. The Dark Web exposed the shadow internet created by the US military and now home to hackers, crooks and freedom fighters. It has been a top ten hit on the platform since its launch in 2017. Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe? revealed the origins of AI, and showed how the technology is seeping into everyday life.

Geoff’s own podcast series Cybercrime Investigations takes listeners inside the world of an investigative journalist, detailing the twists and turns as the story unfolds.

He was also the co-creator of The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone, a live, interactive phone hacking stage performance which showed how the global technology industry is harvesting the data leaking from your handset. The show was a sell–out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, and has been performed at music festivals, political conferences and for corporate clients.

As the technology correspondent for Channel 4 News, one of the UK’s leading daily news programmes, Geoff won multiple awards for his work on the Snowden leaks, the hacking of Britain’s largest ISP TalkTalk and his exposés of fraud in the internet dating industry. He was the creator of the programme’s Data Baby project, a unique experiment which used a fictional online persona to expose how personal data is used – and abused – online.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of these subjects which is as terrifying as it is fascinating. In under 3 years at least $122 million was stolen directly from banks by the Lazarus Group, believed to be run by North Korea.

We hear about the likes of the Love Bug, WannaCry, Zeus and Zeus 2.0. The Sony and Ashley Madison hacks and how the media delighted and feasted over those. But of course it’s not just light-hearted stuff, like gossip and public shaming, some attacks have more severe consequences such as forcing heart operations to getting cancelled and shutting down power supplies.

I’ve read a few of these kinds of books before and White's is as good as any of them, I really enjoyed his style and there was a lot of really interesting material in here. He writes well and I got a lot out of this and I would highly recommend this.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a lot of the information in this book by its nature is now somewhat dated, and much of it reported elsewhere, the book contains a useful thumbnail sketch of the origins of electronic crime in the Internet era and its early development.

[Feed The Crime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cyber Crime is a topic that I’m extremely interested in, I don’t know what it is but I love the dark side of technology and what people will do under the cover of anonymity. I have read quite a bit on this topic so I was a little worried that there wouldn’t be much new to me in here.
However there was no need to worry as Geoff White gave me everything that I was looking for and more!
You can read my full review here: https://feedthecrime.wordpress.com/20...

[Pistachio · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that will take you through cybercrime history and some of most influential hacks. It is not going to be deep, but it is quite nice journalistic overview of the area.

If you work in this area, you might find out more by yourself or perhaps you know most of those stories already. But still, it was quite fine reading.

And I loved this one (a tiny part of the book): "They managed to reverse-engineer the link to reveal a list of all the other people targeted by the hackers. It was, they said, a who's who of anti-Russian interests, ... . What's more, the links had all been created between 9AM and 5PM, Moscow time, between Monday and Friday - with one day off, which happened to coincide with a holiday for technical military staff in the Russian Federation."

[Jari Pirhonen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book covers many famous cyber attacks. If you haven't followed cybersecurity and cybercrime this would be a good reading. However, for me, it didn't give much.

[Ronan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great audio book and well narrated by the author. It’s mind blowing how oblivious some companies are with respect to their cybersecurity and this book showcases this. From outdated software to social engineering, it displays the many vulnerabilities and levels of neglect that lead global incidents.

Packed with stories of events from the past few decades, a real eye opener to the industry.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“За три года Lazarus Group попыталась украсть 1,25 миллиарда долларов. В конце концов из-за работы посредников, отмены транзакций перехвата денег до преступников дошли лишь 122 миллиона.”

Вы когда-нибудь задумывались, что в современном мире история 11 друзей Оушена вероятнее всего произойдет в киберпространстве? И что для нападения на атомную станцию вместо группы вооруженных захватчиков целесообразно использовать стратегию заражения компьютеров вирусом? Или о том, какую роль киберпреступления играют на политической арене и кто именно стоит за ними?

Книга журналиста Джеффа Уайта знакомит читателей с историей киберпреступности от первых вирусов в качестве прикрепленных к письмам файлов Love Bug и мошенничества по телефону до кражи миллионов долларов лишь с помощью клавиатуры и хакерского проникновения в системы банков и роли, какую хакинг играет в современном мире, в том числе на политической и вoeннoй арене. Журналист специализируется на кибербезопасности, поэтому читатель получает детальный обзор всех событий и упоминание самых значимых персонажей даркнета последних двух десятилетий. Кто-то из них уже пойман и отбывает срок, кто-то теперь работает на законных правах и выявляет уязвимости “во благо”.

Если вас хоть немного интересует информационное пространство и те его части, куда обычные пользователи не заглядывают, то непременно обратите внимание на эту книгу.
Читается лучше детективов и триллеров - не оторваться! Уникальное объединение легкого слога и информативности.
И когда осознаешь, насколько все в этом цифровом мире уязвимо, становится немного не по себе…
Кража почти 80 миллионов долларов лишь в результате качественно спланированного проникновения в банковскую систему - в каком то смысле перевернула мое сознание. Насколько в этом мире все ненадежно. И сколь мало значат цифры на счету, пока они обитают лишь в виртуальном пространстве, не подкрепленные ничем. Но это лишь часть уязвимостей, с которыми мы сталкиваемся ежедневно, даже в качестве заурядных пользователей соцсетей.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5/5 однозначно и в топ года!

Будьте осторожны в виртуальном мире и читайте хорошие книги

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Recommendation: Between this and Rachel Maddow's  Blowout , I'm debating going off grid and living like I'm in the 1800s—this shit is scary and slightly overwhelming when faced collectively. White does an excellent job of highlighting the last 30 years of cyber (enabled) crime, all while keeping the individuals (and governments) who perpetrated it and suffered from it at the center of his narrative. He doesn't give you everything and is upfront about that, but he does gives you the unvarnished truth without scaring you too much. But let's face it, this book gives you enough knowledge to want to seek out more so you can keep you and yours safe as society continues venturing forth into the vast unknown that is the cyberage we live in. This is definitely worth the read!

My Response: I honestly don't know how people exist without being paranoid ALL THE TIME. When I first said yes to this after the publicist reached out, it was like 95% because the author's first name was Geoff and 5% because the subject was interesting. And then I found myself completely absorbed with this book.*

Now I'm not saying we're totally screwed, but I mean we're not really that far from being totally screwed and White does a really good job of explaining all of it. He takes an in depth look at the start of cybercrime with the quaint "Love Bug" virus (Wikipedia) to the state sponsored hacking/cyber assault that nudged us into the rotting cesspool of Trumpism that is the US right now.

Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.

[Peter Kálnai · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's writing style is engaging, so the book is easy to read. Geoff White worked with the best possible material, as more than a dozen of cherry-picked stories explained in 10 chapters seem like the most interesting events that ever happened on the cybercrime scenes up to the time of writing. As the cool title suggested, I expected that the content of the book would follow mostly the malicious activities and scams by common cybercrooks pursuing the financial profit, not of those related to the utmost geopolitical games. Anyway, still a great job by the author.

[Madalene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite dry, but informative - particularly in identifying the types of people behind many of the hacks in the last twenty years you have heard about. Helpful description of the common "I am with customer service - please check your computer for this file and if it appears, your computer is infected" scam and how it came to be; and tips at the end for what might head off the devastating social engineering hacks that most corporations fear and often experience.

[Ali Falahati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deliberately written with useful insights about cybercriminals.

It didn't target the technical stuff and instead of that goes with some easy-to-follow stories about many aspects of cybercrime and what vulnerabilities and exploits in our daily dosage of internet contribute the most to the hackers' plans.

Enjoyed chapters about social manipulation via hacking, and how hackers use the modern kind of propaganda, and the way they used it against the US presidential election.

[Aqeel Haider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most astonishing and informative book. Not only for techie's but for layman to understand how vulnerable we are ...

Book: Crime dot Com

Author: Geoff White

Genre: Non fiction/Cyber Space

YOP: 2020

Rating: 5/5

Review: This book is full of information and evolution of hacker to hacktism and finally hacker for Nation states...... It gives you wonderful insight of Dark web , Bitcoin, Hacking movements... It's easy to understand for common man..

[Robert Muller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and a decent history of hacking and its implications for organized crime, but a little shaky on some details (tech stuff, mostly). Not a detailed history or a technological exegesis, more of an overview, and a good one. The point is that this is a new form of organized crime and one that seems to attract state actors, some criminal, some not. Cyberwarfare merges into cybercorruption at the drop of a black hat.

[marcwithac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crime Dot Com is a fun read. It’s not a technical book by any means; in fact, it’s almost completely free from jargon, acronyms, and technical lingo.

The stories are varied and engaging, while the author - Geoff White - does a great job of weaving a thread of continuity from start to finish.

Nevertheless, more knowledgeable readers looking to get into the weeds would be better served elsewhere.

[Patrick Ellard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I had more than a passing knowledge on most of the hacks mentioned in this book, it was still an entertaining and informative read due to how well researched and written it was.

I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in cyber-crime and security.

[Laura A Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so useful, interesting and well written. I knew next to nothing about hacking and bitcoin and it is really accessible to a computer muggle. I bored most of my friends and colleagues talking about all the things i learnt from it!

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book. I really enjoyed listening to it and while I was familiar with some of the material from other books this one presented them so well that I didn't mind listening to them a 2nd time.

[Sean Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this at 4:30 in the morning, and immediately had the thought I should get up and change all, and I mean all, my passwords. Scary stuff.

[Francis L]

good book about cyber crimes.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there was more technical details in the book. but I really enjoyed remembering some of the history mentioned in the book.

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author says in his introduction that this book is for the general reader, but having listened to the excellent "Lazarus Heist" podcast which he co-hosts I was hoping for a little more analysis than it delivers. Anyway, It's a brisk trawl through some of the better known cyber-crime expoits of the 21st century. Readable and entertaining but there's nothing new here.