Slideshow

Most Influential Security Novels

16 Photos Abigail Swabey (CSO Online)

The influence of pop culture on cybercrime and security

  • At CSO we are fascinated by the influence of pop-culture on cybercrime and security so we have put together a selection of the most influential security novels. 

    We are constantly hearing over and over again just how influential the hacking movies, social media, pc games, and novels are on this new generation of cyber-criminals and anti-sec practitioners today. We guess most of you "old-timers" that now practice info sec started with the movies Tron and Wargames? We hope you like our finds - we trawled for hours to find these beauties - however if there are any we have missed please let us know and the list will be updated, or ones you consider shouldn't be on the list, comment with an explanation. All book descriptions are referenced from Amazon.com and are linked

  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez Daemon brings readers on a harrowing journey through the dark crawl spaces of the modern world. It's a cutting-edge high-tech thriller that explores the convergence of MMOG's, BotNets, viral ecosystems, and corporate dominance—forces which are quietly reshaping society with very real consequences for us all. “Greatest. Techno-thriller. Period. Experts have long feared the Internet doomsday scenario. Daemon is arguably more terrifying.” — Billy O'Brien, former Director of Cybersecurity and Communications Policy at the White House
  • Net Force by Tom Clancy A Net Force Explorer plays an innocent game of hide-and-seek on the Web-and finds himself in trouble with the CIA. Now, the Explorers must help him clear his name, before he gets booted off the Net Force Explorers for good...
  • Orson Scott Card Ender's Game (1985) is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card.[1] The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.[2] Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional books to form the Ender's Game series. Card released an updated version of Ender's Game in 1991, changing some political facts to accurately reflect the times. Set in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics (an insectoid alien species also known as the "Buggers"). In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders. The world's most talented children, including the novel's protagonist, Ender Wiggin, are taken at a very young age to a training center known as the Battle School. There, teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games including ones undertaken in zero gravity in the Battle Room where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.
  • KINGPIN by Daniel Poulson How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground Max "Vision" Butler--currently in a federal penitentiary--once sat atop a billion-dollar criminal empire trafficking in stolen credit-card numbers. How he got there and how the authorities finally managed to topple him is a harrowing tale shot through with technology and tragedy. read the full review
  • Hackers by Steven Levy Hackers – Heroes of the Computer Revolution This book traces the history of hackers, from clunky computer card punching machines to the inner secrets of what would become the internet. It includes groundbreaking profiles of Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, MIT railroad club and more; the shapers of the digital revolution.
  • Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet In 2004, a California computer whiz named Barrett Lyon uncovered the identity of a hacker running major assaults on business websites. Without fully grasping the repercussions, he set on an investigation that led him into the heart of the Russian mob. Cybercrime was evolving. No longer the domain of small-time thieves, it had been discovered by sophisticated gangs. They began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly stole financial data from consumers and defense secrets from governments. While Barrett investigated the cutting edge of technology crime, the U.S. government struggled to catch up. Britain, however, was a different story. In the late 1990s, the Queen herself had declared safe e-commerce a national security priority. Agents from the London-based National Hi-Tech Crime Unit sought out Barrett and enlisted his help. They also sent detective Andrew Crocker, a Welsh former boxer, to Russia to track down and prosecute the hackers—and to find out who they worked for. Fatal System Error penetrates both the Russian cyber-mob and the American mafia as the two fight over the Internet’s massive spoils.
  • Zero Day by Mark Russinovich An airliner’s controls abruptly fail mid-flight over the Atlantic. An oil tanker runs aground in Japan when its navigational system suddenly stops dead. Hospitals everywhere have to abandon their computer databases when patients die after being administered incorrect dosages of their medicine. In the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl when its cooling systems malfunction. At first, these random computer failures seem like unrelated events. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who quit in disgust after witnessing the gross errors that led up to 9/11, thinks otherwise. Jeff fears a more serious attack targeting the United States computer infrastructure is already under way. And as other menacing computer malfunctions pop up around the world, some with deadly results, he realizes that there isn’t much time if he hopes to prevent an international catastrophe. Written by a global authority on cyber security, Zero Day presents a chilling “what if” scenario that, in a world completely reliant on technology, is more than possible today---it’s a cataclysmic disaster just waiting to happen.
  • The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer EspionageBefore the Internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive U.S. citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" (Smithsonian). Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter" -- a mysterious invader who managed to break into U.S. computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy. It was a dangerous game of deception, broken codes, satellites, and missile bases -- a one-man sting operation that finally gained the attention of the CIA...and ultimately trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB.
  • The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey Since 1984, the quarterly magazine 2600 has provided fascinating articles for readers who are curious about technology. Find the best of the magazine’s writing in Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey, a collection of the strongest, most interesting, and often most controversial articles covering 24 years of changes in technology, all from a hacker’s perspective. Included are stories about the creation of the infamous tone dialer “red box” that allowed hackers to make free phone calls from payphones, the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the insecurity of modern locks.
  • Mafiaboy: A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man In 2000, an unknown attacker brought down the websites of Amazon, CNN, Dell, E-TRADE, eBay, and Yahoo!, inciting panic from Silicon Valley to the White House. The FBI, police, and independent security experts launched a manhunt as President Clinton convened a cyber security summit to discuss how best to protect America’s information infrastructure from future attacks. Then, after hundreds of hours of wiretapping, law enforcement officials executed a late-night raid and came face-to-face with the most wanted man in cyberspace: a fifteen-year-old whose username was “Mafiaboy.” Despite requests from every major media outlet, that young man, Michael Calce, has never spoken publicly about his crimes—until now. Equal parts true-crime thriller and exposé, Mafiaboy will take you on an electrifying tour of the fast-evolving twenty-first-century world of hacking—from disruptions caused by teens like Calce to organized crime and other efforts with potentially catastrophic results. It also includes a guide to protecting yourself online.
  • Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) by Neal Stephenson In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately.
  • Digital Fortress by Dan Brown When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant, beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage--not by guns or bombs -- but by a code so complex that if released would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.
  • Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It The dramatic true story of the capture of the world's most wanted cyberthief by brilliant computer expert Tsutomu Shimomura, describes Kevin Mitnick's long computer crime spree, which involved millions of dollars in credit card numbers and corporate trade secrets. Reprint. NYT.
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson

     

    Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction "triple crown" — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award.[1] It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy. The novel tells the story of a washed-up computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to pull off the ultimate hack.

  • Cryptonomicon By Neal Stephenson With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.

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