👨🏽‍💻 🥟 🥃 What to read in the remaining weekend - books about viruses, hackers and the history of the "digital" cartel 👨🏼‍🚒 🤷🏽 🚣🏼

Last time we did a selection of literature about the intricacies of hackers and the risks in IT . Today we continue to develop this topic. Under the cut: the story of Cult of the Dead Cow - a group from the 80s that now deals with the protection of personal data, as well as books about the criminal genius Paul Le Roux and Kevin Mitnik, who committed more than 20 cybercrimes.

Photos - Chris Yang - Unsplash

Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

In the mid-80s, the American computer underground consisted of hundreds of different teams. But only one of them survived all anti-hacker raids and is still thriving - Cult of the Dead Cow. The book of Joseph Menn, a Reuters reporter, introduces the reader to her story and accomplishments. For example, Cult of the Dead Cow participated in the development of the Tor proxy system and coined the term hacktivism .

Menn also talks about the members of this hacker group. Interestingly, one of them was Beto O'Rourke, a former U.S. senator who ran for president in 2020. He was known under the pseudonymPsychedelic Warlord. Today, Cult of the Dead Cow conducts a fairly open activity, and its members are involved in the protection of personal data - nothing illegal.

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar

Labor of Andy Greenberg, one of the leading editors of Wired magazine. This is a detective story about the NotPetya virus and the Sandworm group behind its spread. In 2017, the malware paralyzed the work of Ukrainian, Russian and European companies, including attacking ATMs and cash registers in stores. The Danish logistics company Moller-Maersk alone estimated the damage from the cyber attack at $ 300 million.

The author says: what impact did malware have on the global economy and infrastructure, and what similar attacks could lead to in the future.

Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire

The story of how the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hunted down Paul Le Roux, a brilliant programmer and one of the most successful criminal geniuses. He built his cartel, actively using tools of the digital era: mobile phones with encryption, cloud technology and new forms of money laundering.

The facts in the material are supported by interviews with agents of the 960 Group special forces and undercover operatives. Interestingly, the director Michael Mann, a four-time Academy Award nominee with an extensive filmography of documentary and detective films, took part in the writing of the text.

Note that last year another book was published on the empire of Paul Le Roux - “ The Mastermind: The hunt for the World's most prolific criminal". It was written by Evan Ratliff (Evan Ratliff) - co-founder of the software company Atavist and an employee of Wired Magazine and The New Yorker. Those who have already read it say that it is a small but energetic material that is easy to swallow over the weekend.

Photos - Krissara Lertnimanorladee - Unsplash

The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware

Book by Andrew Huang, an engineer who wrote “Hacking the Xbox” in 2003 and developed the open source platform for Novena laptops . The Hardware Hacker is a collection of essays where Andrew shares his experience in open source hardware design. For example, he talks about how he went around the Shenzhen electronics market in search of components for Novena. It also addresses the legal aspects of reverse engineering and the importance of reverse engineering for the open source community.

You'll see this message when it is too late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches

Josephine Wolff, Cybersecurity Specialist at Tufts University, offers an excursion into the history of the largest personal data leaks that have occurred since 2005. Among them: draining 145 million records from Equifax credit bureaus, credit card data leakage from TJX Companies and hacking Ashley Madison dating site.

The author analyzes the extent and consequences of the damage, as well as the motives that guided the hackers.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker

The story of Kevin Mitnick, written by Kevin Mitnick. He is considered one of the most elusive masters of computer hacking. For example, he had stolen data from a PC Tsutomu Shimomura (Shimomura Tsutomu), a leading American expert on information security, as well as breaking into the corporate network of companies Motorola and McCaw Cellular Communications. In total, he committed more than 20 cybercrimes. But in the end, the authorities caught him and sentenced him to five years in prison.

In his book, Mitnik talks about how he was hiding from the FBI and what techniques he used (including forgery of identity documents). The hacker even shot the feature film Hack.

What else do we have on Habré: