Reviews
Ben Rothke’s review for Slashdot calls ZDT an “eye-opening look at how banks and credit card companies make ID theft and fraud rather elementary.” Click here to read the full review.
Mich Kabay’s review for Network World calls ZDT an “excellent read.” Click here to read the full review.
Steve Weinberg’s review for USA Today says ZDT delivers astounding revelations. Click here to read the full review.
Dean Takahashi’s review was done in the form of a Q&A with one of the co-authors. Click here to read the full review.
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BLURBS
This is an important and major piece of investigative journalism that you ignore at your own peril.
- James V. Grimaldi, 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner, Washington Post, and President of Investigative Reporters & Editors
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If you bank or manage your stocks online, you have to read this book. Cyberspace is making all sorts of things possible, unfortunately among them are fraud, theft, and espionage—all of which can directly impact you.
- Richard A. Clarke, Counterterrorism Consultant and author, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, Breakpoint, The Scorpion’s Gate
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Zero Day Threat tells the real stories behind computer crime headlines. Who really is behind these attacks? This book gives us a fascinating view into a world that you normally wouldn’t know anything about—and points us the way out.
- Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer, F-Secure Security Labs
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Rushing in to profit from online commerce and banking, financial institutions knowingly put our personal information and identities at risk. This is like the digital-age equivalent of tobacco companies making sure cigarettes have high enough addictive properties.
- Mitchell Ashley, Security Consultant, The Converging Network
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While it’s not hard to write a decent yarn about the rare cyber-criminal who gets caught, it’s virtually impossible to write compellingly about the systemic failures of the smooth-talking credit and software industries, which have made it laughably easy for such criminals to thrive. The authors have pulled off a monumental task, making it easy for the average reader to see why so many powerful interests wish this crucial book had never been written.
- Joseph Menn, Tech Security Writer, Los Angeles Times and author of All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster
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Zero Day Threat reads like a juicy cyber thriller in the tradition of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. But it’s also An Inconvenient Truth for the digital age. Every great industry needs great reporters to hold leaders to higher standards, and that’s just what Acohido and Swartz are doing here.
- Marc Benioff, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Salesforce.com
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The Internet has created a “perfect storm” scenario for criminals: no taxes and no tax evasion, value in everything online, anonymous access to vast resources, criminal tools that look and act like lawful tools, no national or political boundaries, limited cyber laws and virtually no law enforcement, numerous opportunities for money laundering, global interconnectivity, and millions of clueless victims. Add to that mix the lax attitude of the financial sector and the storm becomes deadly. Society no longer owns the Internet, it belongs to the criminals described in the Zero Day Threat.
- Marcus Sachs, Director of the SANS Internet Storm Center
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Be afraid. Be very afraid of an accelerating wave of computer crime encouraged by lazy software and a blase attitude by the very institutions that should be guarding our electronic purses and profiles. That’s the message of Zero Day Threat.
- Tom Abate, Tech Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle
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Combining their decades of experience in technology journalism, Acohido and Swartz weave together the nuanced landscape that has produced a Zero Day Threat. They show that fraud isn’t as simple as “bad things sometimes happen to good people.” The reality, as detailed by Acohido and Swartz, is that powerful economic forces have prioritized speed and greed over good security.
- Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Senior Staff Attorney, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic; Senior Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology
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When it comes to cyber crime, ignorance is not bliss. What you don’t know can hurt you. Zero Day Threat is an ambitious look at the breadth of the problem and the people who exploit the weaknesses of our financial systems.
- Joe Simitian, California State Senator and author of California’s landmark data loss notification law
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A harrowing inside look at the brave new world of cybercrime and identity theft spawned by technology. Acohido and Swartz take us into the shadowy dens of the scammers and call their enablers to task.
- Robert Weisman, Technology Writer, The Boston Globe
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Both a cautionary tale and a call to action, ZDT makes one of the most compelling arguments to date on the imminent risks consumers face in online data theft and identity fraud. ZDT launches its own “attack” against the blind eye financial institutions have historically taken towards consumer safety and exposes the truly inverse relationship between consumer convenience and security.
- Guillaume Lovet, Lead Threat Researcher, Fortinet
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If we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that nothing about the breadth, complexity and pervasiveness of the cyber-crime world should surprise you, and that the problem is only getting worse. Acohido and Swartz bring to long form the same reporting and storytelling skills that have allowed them to boil-down such a massive issue into front-page news on a daily basis. Bravo!
- Matt Hines, Senior Writer, InfoWorld.com
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A compelling journey through the zero-sum game of identity theft, where perpetrators and enablers, ranging from meth heads to mammoth credit bureaus, continue to pile up tidy sums—and victims are treated like zeros.
- Evan Hendricks, author, Credit Scores & Credit Reports
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We madly rush our lives (and money!) on the Web, thoughtless to the ripoff artists and cyberthieves waiting for us there—or the financial bigshots who write them off as the cost of business. Kudos to Acohido and Swartz for a dazzling, essential expose.
- Quentin Hardy, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, Forbes
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A must-read for anyone interested in keeping their credit record clean. The objective journalism in Zero Day Threat reveals the shoddy state of IT security and how the Internet underworld benefits by robbing people blind, safely and remotely.
- Stu Sjouwerman, Founder, Sunbelt Software
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Two crackerjack journalists expose and explain the plague of identity theft. Wisely and creatively, Acohido and Swartz divide each chapter into the Exploiters (the criminals), the Enablers (banks, credit card companies, credit bureaus), and the Expediters (computer software developers). Zero Day Threat is consumer-oriented investigative reporting at its zenith.
- Steve Weinberg, former Executive Director, Investigative Reporters and Editors; Professor of Journalism, University of Missouri
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Zero Day Threat takes an in-depth look at the process by which cyber criminals exploit security holes in banks and credit card bureaus placing anyone using the internet or swiping a credit card at risk for data theft and identity fraud. This book will definitely serve to educate readers on the importance of security and privacy issues that confront us all on a daily basis.
- Susan M. Caldwell, CEO of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association.
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Technology managers can face a big challenge trying to get senior management to understand that effective security is well worth the investment. Real-world stories make their job easier. This extraordinarily well-written book contains the richest set of stories about real cyber attacks ever assembled.
- Alan Paller, Director of Research, SANS Institute
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Acohido and Swartz delve deeply into the new and scary frontiers of cybercrime, telling a story as fast-paced and compelling as a Crichton sci-fi thriller — except this threat is real and taking place right here among us. Zero Day Threat is a must read for anyone who has money, and wants to keep it.
- Steve Liewer, military writer, San Diego Union-Tribune
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Escalating battles between online banks and their attackers have resulted in collateral damage. Their faceless victims, with null account balances, line the streets. While there will never be a patch for these victims, Zero Day Threat may teach future banking consumers when to keep their head down and out of the line of fire.
- Gunter Ollmann, Director of Security Strategy, IBM Internet Security Systems
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This book is long overdue. Zero Day Threat shows how the weakest link for security is typically human oversight.
- Chris Pirillo, Founder, Lockergnome
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