Spies Among Us

How to Stop the Spies, Terrorists, Hackers, and Criminals...

He doesn't have a cool code name like '007' (at least not that I know of), but Ira Winkler has been likened to a modern-day James Bond for his exploits. He has built a reputation throughout the world on his ability to simulate an espionage attack and infiltrate corporate and government networks. As a member of the Information Systems Security Hall of Fame, Mr. Winkler's insights and advice should be read and understood by virtually anyone who has a job or uses a computer.

About The Author

Ira Winkler began his career with the National Security Agency as an undercover security analyst. He has assisted various agencies of the United States and other governments, as well as major corporations, in their battle against the technological underworld. Relentless and dedicated in the pursuit of improving security, he has "stolen" billions of dollars from huge corporations, lifted nuclear reactor designs in less than four hours, and hacked into multinational networks. In a single day, he siphoned off a billion dollars' worth of information from a leading corporation, exposing a potentially disastrous security gap. Along with espionage simulations and penetration testing, he also investigates cybercrime. For more about Ira Winkler, visit his web site at www.irawinkler.com

About The Book

The book is divided into three major sections: Part I-Espionage Concepts, Part II-Case Studies and Part III-Stopping The Spies. In the first section, Winkler describes why famous spies such as James Bond are actually not very good at their craft and provides some insight into just what it takes to be an effective "spy".

Winkler's career provides him with an ample history of attacks, security vulnerabilities and instances of espionage and subversion to use in the section devoted to Case Studies. Some of the details in the case studies are frightening in their simplicity and lack of technological expertise of any sort.

In the third section though Winkler tells us all is not lost. While he has made a living out of identifying weaknesses and exploiting them to gain access to seemingly impenetrable networks, he does not profess a "sky is falling" mentality that all hope is lost. Section III provides a variety of tips and tools you can use to protect yourself and your computer or network from being exploited, or at very least make it much more difficult for someone to infiltrate or compromise.

My Review

This book is sort of like the how-to or nuts & bolts book to serve as a companion to Kevin Mitnick's The Art Of Deception. Winkler explains how the spies, terrorists or other malcontents of the world are able to penetrate network defenses and compromise apparently "secure" networks to gain access to sensitive and confidential information.

The book may be targeted primarily at information security professionals, but in my opinion that is short-sighted. The value of a book like this- one that demonstrates the ease with which information can be social-engineered from naive people- should be shared with the masses so that they develop an awareness and can help to combat such attacks.

Spies among us provides an excellent look at the methods and techniques that can be used to exploit and infiltrate a government or corporate network, but more importantly Winkler provides a number or tools and techniques that the reader can apply to help prevent such attacks.

Some of the information may be too technically "deep" for an average reader, but most of the book is fairly easy to read and the "cloak and dagger" stories may be appealing, if not frightening, to just about any reader.

Definitely worth reading for just about anyone.