Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet [ハードカバー]

Joseph Menn has cracked open the inside workings of cyber crime bosses with his book Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet . I packed the book with me this past week as I retired to a rustic cabin in Northern Michigan. Menn's book made for enthralling reading by light of a butane camp lantern. In addition to telling the story of Barrett Lyon, entrepreneur and cyber crime fighter who founded Prolexic, BitGravity and 3Crowd, Menn follows through to recount the dark world of Russian crime figures as explored by Andy Crocker, on assignment from the UK National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU). Andy finally convicts three DDoS extortionists in Russian who are serving sentences of eight years hard labor.
I met Barrett in 2004 when he was still immersed in getting Prolexic off the ground. I was at Gartner and looking for something new to get involved in. Barrett's network defenses against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks was the most exciting thing I had encountered. Barrett thought I was joking when I asked him if I could send him my resume. I was completely serious until I met his business partner Mickey Flynn in a hotel bar in Chicago. Mickey ran BetCRIS, one of the key sports book making and online gaming organizations in Costa Rica. For once in my career my spidey sense served me well. Mickey seemed like a great guy but it was the first time I had ever met anyone accompanied by two big body guards wearing sports coats and obviously packing. As Barrett's adventure unfolded I saw bits and pieces of it but I had no idea just how deeply entrenched Barrett had become in the workings of an international crime ring, one that had its own problems with cyber criminals in Russia. Thanks to Joseph Menn I now know the story.
At his wedding in San Francisco Barrett seemed as light hearted and happy as any groom should. It is hard to believe upon reading Menn's account that the night before Barrett had excused himself from the rehearsal dinner to secretly pass off a key fob with a digital audio recorder that he had used to capture a day's worth of conversation with one of the Prolexic partners to an FBI agent waiting around the corner in a dark sedan.
To research his book Menn traveled to Russia with Barrett and the other hero of his book, Andy Crocker. The picture he paints of a corrupt justice and law enforcement system in Russia is chilling. Andy spent three years in Russia tracking down the ring of extortionists that Barrett had uncovered. Andy and Barrett did not even speak directly to each other until the night after Andy obtained convictions against three of the bad guys.

Not since Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage has there been a book that delves as deeply into the workings of criminal hackers. This book will be widely read by law enforcement, policy makers, and IT security professionals. Like Stoll's book I predict it will inspire a generation of technologists to join the battle against cyber criminals.

If you're already worried about computer crime and identity theft, you'll be wracked with fear if you read this troubling new account of the subject by a Los Angeles Times reporter specializing in Internet security. Joseph Menn's "Fatal System Error" is aptly subtitled "The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet." By focusing on two heroes of the underpowered movement to combat Internet crime, Menn brings this complex and terrifying reality into high relief. The book is largely devoted to the efforts of Barrett Lyon, a California surfer self-taught to become one of the world's leading Internet security experts, and Andy Crocker, a courageous British policeman, and their collaborative work to identify the criminals responsible for the now all-too-familiar viruses, worms, Trojans, and denial-of-service attacks that have infiltrated millions of computers and disabled thousands of Web sites.

It's disturbing enough to learn that criminals siphoned off [...] trillion from computer fraud in 2009 alone, and to know that a huge proportion of that money went into the pockets of the American mafia and the Russian mob. Even more disquieting, though, is to learn about how both the Russian and Chinese governments are protecting Internet criminals because they have enlisted them in building offensive cyberwar weapons. What we all learned recently about Chinese hackers' attacks on Google and other U.S. companies invested in China is just a hint of the breadth and depth of that government's efforts to gain ascendancy over the West by building the capacity to bring down our economies in the event of a future conflict.

(From Mal Warwick's Blog on Books)

Working in the computer security industry we see these type of criminal acts on a daily basis. However, what we see is a microcosm of what Mr. Menn writes about in this great work. Tying all the ends together into a readable format that is literally a international crime thriller brings to light the vast dangers to our financial data and it's uses.

I'd recommend this book for ANYONE that uses the internet.