Did you know that the first Thursday of May is also National Password Day? It’s a great time to think about your passwords–have you checked out this list of some of 2017’s most common (and hackable!) passwords?–and then to think about cybersecurity in general.
Have you ever wondered about what’s happening behind closed cybersecurity doors, or what on earth a white hat hacker is? Delve into cybersecurity along with some of its foremost experts in Hacking the Hacker: Learn From the Experts Who Take Down Hackers. Perhaps you’re more curious about the ways in which cyber threats can become national threats, and how countries can–and sometimes do–deploy hackers against other nation-states. Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber Wars delves into cyber warfare’s history as well as its present, utilizing information from national security units focused on cyber security, among other experts. Similarly, in Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It, you’ll take a trip through corporate, individual, and national cyber warfare, along with experts from the FBI and Interpol. Still curious about the origins of these weaponzied cyber viruses? Check out Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon and the history of the first large-scale cyber attack: the virus that brought down Iran’s nuclear plants.
Interested in ways to keep yourself–and your information–as safe as possible? We have guides for that sort of thing! Former hacker Kevin Mitnick takes readers on a tour of what’s out there–and how to be safe in the cyber world–in The Art of Invisibility: The World’s Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How To Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother (speaking of which, isn’t it time to re-read 1984?) Learn about ways to defend yourself, your business, and your information from ransomware with Ransomware: Defending Against Digital Extortion. Figure out ways to protect yourself from a wide range of cyber attacks with The Cyber Attack Survival Manual: Tools for Surviving Everything From Identity Theft to the Digital Apocalypse.
Now that you’ve seen a bunch of very serious and informational books about cybersecurity, maybe you’re looking for a lighter read on the same theme. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, its title a nod to Orwell’s 1984, features a cast of teens who, in the midst of a terror attack, find themselves rounded up and interrogated under martial law but decide to try to fight back using their cyber skills. Lisbeth Salander, of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo fame (it’s also a movie in Swedish and in English and a graphic novel), is a computer hacker; you can track her ongoing adventures in novels with Stieg Larsson here and with David Lagercrantz here, or check out the movies, here. Enter a tense world of cybersecurity and djinnis in G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, or visit a world in which a young girl tries to create a virus through which her dying father will live forever in Joey Comeau’s Malagash. In Duel to the Death, a rogue artificial intelligence program tries to warn Stu of impending doom as he comes dangerously close to cartel business, while the new director of the CIA hunts down a dangerous mole after his agency is hacked in The Director. Finally, when a businessman picks up a politician’s Macbook by accident in the airport security line, he finds himself a hunted man in The Switch.
Cybersecurity is important for all of us, and National Password Day is a great excuse to check our passwords against those lists of most common and most hackable passwords. Happy cyber-securing!
On the Shelves at Homewood Public Library 