The Fifth Domain: A Solid Modern History for 2021

by Paul Jerimy | May 7, 2021 | Book Reviews

y fSummary

The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knacke is a follow up to their 2010 novel Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do about It.

This novel discusses the history, workings, and risks of cybersecurity related technologies and problems faced in 2019, many of which are still in the fore-front in 2021. Each chapter covers a cybersecurity event, policy, or technology generally painting a history starting with the Petya randsomware attack of late 2016 and ending in quantum computing announcements of late 2019. The perspective is from government cyber security policy makers with a technical background.

Topics discussed are:

Petya, NotPetya, StuxNet, and Wannacry attacks
Cloud Computing / AWS GovCloud
Spectre/Meltdown and Venom attacks
Separation of internet and state
Hack back
Efficacy of US cyber regulations in both private and public sectors
AI and machine learning
Quantum computing
5G / IoT
ICS / SCADA
Personal cyber security

My Reaction

This novel is a great problems facing modern (as of 2021) cybersecurity professionals. It does a good job of briefly describing recent attacks & emerging concerns while also explaining why these events were so important. I personally struggled through the beginning chapters because it was a rehash of content covered in many other novels, but I did gather some insights.

This novel is laid out very well and doesn’t fall victim to many of the issues of other cybersecurity novels. It gives a “so what” about events, makes recommendations about what can be done to fix problems, and doesn’t ignore the wide breadth of concerns cybersecurity professionals current have to contend with. It uses language that is slightly more technical that most but feels approachable for non-technical readers.

I found the insights about how organizations need dozens of security software suites but no company is making a useful all-in-one suite very topical and is a personal frustration. I was hoping the authors would suggest a solution to this, but they did not.

The authors are very wary about letting government having a role in cybersecurity for private organizations. They outline the dangers of a government run cyber defense screen, encryption backdoors, and “clipper chips” very well. However, the authors also paint a picture that cyber defenders are starting to gain an advantage over attackers which I personally disagree with. It is true that networks who properly implement a full system security plan are much safer than they use to be, attackers continue to develop novel attacks, social engineering methods, and zero-days that get around even the best plan.

Recommendation

I recommend this book as essential reading for all information technology professionals and hobbyists. If you only want to read one book on cybersecurity, this might be the right one to choose. I especially recommend that cyber policy makers read this to understand current and emerging threats as well as solid recommendations for defending against them.

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Rise of the Locusts: Cyber Bait and Switch

by Paul Jerimy | Apr 2, 2021 | Book Reviews

Synopsis

Rise of the Locusts by Mark Goodwin is the first novel in his Cyber Armageddon series. The series follows a SOC Supervisor at a financial institute from the discovery of a breach through to the shutdown of critical infrastructure in the United States.

The first half of the book focuses on the main protagonist dealing with a breach that acts a lot like ransomware. The technical details used, the setting, and the initial actions were all very realistic and well done. The story is very interesting and hits on a lot of real situations.

After it is determined that a major shutdown of all financial services is going to happen, the protagonist decides to head for the hills with her family. The remainder of the story focuses more on surviving the initial wave of a crisis but keeps referring back to how the ransomware attack is devastating the country.

My Reaction

The main protagonist is interesting in the first novel. She suffers from anxiety and is an introvert. This is used in an interesting way until she is suddenly very confident towards the end. Overall though, I do like her as a character although the rest of the characters fall a bit flat.

The author is a Christian writer with a heavy conservative bias, but that didn’t seem to creep in much. Every once and awhile there is a weird comment or reference, but I just blew past them. Each chapter opens with a Bible verse, but I’ve seen that done before in other stories as a literary device rather than to put things in a religious context. I think the latter is what the author was going for, but its easy enough to ignore if you are not religious. There is a sudden chapter long Christian sermon/rant towards the end of the novel that is a bit jarring, but I don’t think the whole book should be tossed because of it.

That said, I did read the sequel novel “Feast of the Locusts” and the author dials the political and religious topics up to 11. He does not address any cyber security related topics except the occasional reference to why things are still so bad. It is a very jarring contrast to the first novel and feels like a betrayal if you didn’t know the author was a Christian novel writer.

Recommendation

I recommend this novel to cyber security professionals looking for a realistic portrayal of an attack and a family’s reaction to that attack, especially if you like readying about “prepper” tactics. There is enough technical information for cyber security professionals while still being readable for lay persons. If you are easily offended by conservative or religious concept, then perhaps you can pass on this one.

As for the sequels, I only recommend those books for religious people looking for a good Christian thriller. The sequels do not have any noteworthy cyber security topics, but instead focus on prepper communities.

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Chasm Waxing: A great story in need of an editor

by Paul Jerimy | Feb 2, 2020 | Book Reviews

Synopsis

Chasm Waxing has an excellent premise and a covers a great variety of topics. For cyber security and/or IT professionals, this book really employs a lot of concepts that you will appreciate. For the not so tech savvy, B. Michaels offers great explanations of hard concepts. It does not require a doctorate in computer science to follow the plot, but having one will surely make this book a more interesting read.

The first act offered great – albeit dramatized – insight into cyber security, emerging technologies, and start up strategies. It is not action packed, but it is mentally and emotionally engaging.

The second act is a dramatic and welcome change in pace that feels a bit like a new story, but weaves all the concepts of the first act together into real tension. The character roles are well defined, the antagonist emerges, and the stakes are made clear.

The third act returns to the same voice as the first act with a lot of learning and exposition about the implications of technology. It mostly sets the stage for the second book with a lot of cliffhangers in the final chapter.

My Reaction

If you are looking for a real cyber thriller that uses real technology in a deep and accurate way, this is the book for you. Even if you don’t know what AES, strong AI, or a start-up accelerator is, you will enjoy this story and hopefully learn a little about these topics.

However, this book desperately needed more editing or proofreading to catch grammar mistakes and real-word spelling errors. The last line in the first paragraph had a real-word spelling error, which put me on guard for the rest of the story. They are few and far between in the first half of the book, but start getting rather frequent and distracting in the last quarter. I have highlighted and noted some, but I got a bit tired of doing so after awhile.

The use of quotation marks was a bit maddening and I often had no idea who was talking or if anyone was talking. In some places the wrong names were used which required a few extra readings to work out if that person suddenly joined the conversation or if it was a writing mistake. In other places, sentences had no punctuation at the end.

The redactions were interesting the first 2-3 times, but after a few chapters they really detracted from the story. At one point, two whole pages were redacted and I was left not knowing what was happening. However I don’t think anything critical to the plot was in those redactions.

The book spent a good amount of time building up to a sequel. Its been 4 years since this story was published and there’s no sign that a sequel is in the works. For what its worth, I hope the sequel pans out as I would love to continue this story.

Recommendation

This book was a fun read from a cybersecurity perspective. I have not yet found another novel that integrates so much newer technologies and cyber processes into a story line. I would recommend this book to readers who aren’t as picky about editing mistakes as I am, and who like to read techno-thrillers. There’s not a significant amount to learn in this novel, however the part about the accelerator was quite new to me.

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