BOOK REVIEW: The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics
by Ben Buchanan
Reviewed by Peter M. Tran
Peter M. Tran is a former NCIS Special Agent and information security, cyber defense technology, and security operations expert. He has over 20 years of experience developing and implementing cyber counter threat and exploitation solutions, applications and applied advanced breach detection, response and analytics methods. Follow him on Twitter.
In the midst of the coronavirus global pandemic, I can’t help but draw parallels to the cyber world in that the enemy is invisible, adaptable, pervasive and capable of shaping multiple dimensions of domestic and international geopolitics. This is exactly what Ben Buchanan accomplishes in somewhat of a Hitchcock-esque “Rear Window” style of putting the reader in a front row seat to watch exactly how select nation states use their own home brew cyber hacking techniques and tactics or what Buchanan calls “Statecraft” to disrupt, manipulate and arguably change the course of our daily lives.
Although the book takes a scholarly approach in its research and fact finding, I did get a strong sense this was more than just another cyber conspiracy story rooted in age-old cloak and dagger politics. Buchanan takes the reader through an extremely relevant, well-articulated and qualified view of the new realities of where the real battlefield exists in the next frontier of information technology platforms and how those platforms extend geopolitically to everyday people from Madison Avenue to Main Street.
What I found intriguing was Buchanan’s approach to espionage and disruption attacks within the context of hacking with an original view of how the private sector big tech firms such as AT&T, Google, Facebook, Apple and others hold a considerable burden on their shoulders within the geopolitical foreign counter intelligence tug-of-war. This makes the reader really think about whether the enemy of your enemy is really your friend. This made me question who is really spying on what the book calls, “the backbone of the internet.”
The author then takes a sharp right-hand turn to provide a chilling view of what feels like state sponsored cyber “street justice” reminiscent of hit men and snipers but with a twist, as the book brings the reader through a vast and complex world called the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) with shadowy state-sponsored hacker subgroups with names such as BYZANTINE HADES, BIZANTINE CANDOR and hacking the hackers through tailored access operations (TAO) somewhere in and around Ft. Meade, Maryland. For me, this was an up close and personal replay back to my days with the former U.S. Department of Defense Joint Task Force Global Network Operations now the U.S. Cyber Command based out of the NSA. Buchanan does a brilliant job making this transition to taking the reader as close to the front lines as possible short of being right on the hacker’s lap and keyboard somewhere in mainland China or North Korea.
In an impacting moment in the book, Buchanan quotes former Director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, saying “Iran was an unpredictable adversary because it did not calculate in its hacking operations but rather ‘will act emotionally’.” This took me even closer to feeling the adversary’s moves as it brought in the human element rather than treating it like zeros and ones floating out in cyber space.
The Hacker and The State is direct, no nonsense and strikes to the core of the state-sponsored hacker’s industrial complex while balancing thought provoking sub themes and challenging current and future geopolitical integrity, intent and global data privacy expectations. Buchanan leaves the reader well anchored in qualified facts, true to life use cases and animated experiences with thought provoking glimpses for the reader to formulate his/her own correlations and conclusions.
This book earns three and a half trench coats
This book earns a prestigious 3.5 out of four trench coats.
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