These Are Our Favorite Cyber Books On Hacking, Espionage, Crypto, Surveillance, And More

In nan past 30 years aliases so, cybersecurity has gone from being a niche specialty wrong nan larger section of machine science, to an manufacture estimated to beryllium worthy much than $170 cardinal made of a globe-spanning organization of hackers. In turn, nan industry’s growth, and high-profile hacks specified arsenic nan 2015 Sony breach, nan 2016 U.S. predetermination hack and leak operations, nan Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and a seemingly endless list of Chinese government hacks, person made cybersecurity and hacking spell mainstream. 

Pop civilization has embraced hackers pinch deed TV shows for illustration Mr. Robot, and movies for illustration Leave The World Behind. But possibly nan astir prolific mean for cybersecurity stories — some fabrication and based connected reality — are books. 

We person curated our ain database of champion cybersecurity books, based connected nan books we person publication ourselves, and those that nan organization suggested connected Mastodon and Bluesky.

This database of books (in nary peculiar order) will beryllium periodically updated.

Countdown to Zero Day, Kim Zetter

The cyberattack coordinated by Israeli and U.S. authorities hackers known arsenic Stuxnet, which damaged nan centrifuges astatine nan Iranian atomic installation successful Natanz, is almost surely the most well-known hack successful history. Because of its impact, its sophistication, and its sheer boldness, nan onslaught captured nan imagination not only of nan cybersecurity community, but nan larger nationalist arsenic well. 

Veteran journalist Kim Zetter tells nan communicative of Stuxnet by treating nan malware for illustration a characteristic to beryllium profiled. To execute that, Zetter interviews virtually each nan main investigators who recovered nan malicious code, analyzed really it worked, and figured retired what it did. It’s a must publication for anyone who useful successful nan cyber field, but it besides serves arsenic a awesome preamble to nan world of cybersecurity and cyberespionage for regular folks.   

Dark Wire, Joseph Cox 

There haven’t been immoderate sting operations much daring and expansive than nan FBI’s Operation Trojan Shield, successful which nan feds ran a startup called Anom that sold encrypted phones to immoderate of nan worst criminals successful nan world, from high-profile supplier smugglers to elusive mobsters. 

Those criminals thought they were utilizing connection devices specifically designed to debar surveillance. In reality, each their supposedly unafraid messages, pictures, and audio notes were being funneled to nan FBI and its world rule enforcement partners. 404 Media journalist Joseph Cox masterfully tells nan communicative of Anom, pinch interviews pinch nan sting operation’s masterminds successful nan FBI, nan developers and workers who ran nan startup, and nan criminals utilizing nan devices. 

The Cuckoo’s Egg, Cliff Stoll

In 1986, astronomer Cliff Stoll was tasked pinch figuring retired a discrepancy of $0.75 successful his lab’s machine web usage. At this point, nan net was mostly a web for authorities and world institutions, and these organizations paid depending connected really overmuch clip online they spent. Over nan adjacent year, Stoll meticulously pulled nan threads of what seemed for illustration a insignificant incident and ended up discovering 1 of nan first-ever recorded cases of authorities cyberespionage, successful this lawsuit carried retired by Russia’s KGB. 

Stoll not only solved nan mystery, but he besides chronicled it and turned it into a gripping spy thriller. It’s difficult to understate really important this book was. When it came retired successful 1989, hackers were hardly a blip successful nan public’s imagination. The Cuckoo’s Egg showed young cybersecurity enthusiasts really to analyse a cyber incident, and it showed nan wider nationalist that stories astir machine spies could beryllium arsenic breathtaking arsenic those of real-life James Bond-like figures. 

Your Face Belongs to Us, Kashmir Hill

Face nickname has quickly gone from a exertion that seemed all-powerful successful movies and TV shows — but was really janky and imprecise successful real-life — to an important and comparatively meticulous instrumentality for rule enforcement successful its regular operations. Longtime tech newsman Kashmir Hill tells nan history of nan exertion done nan emergence of 1 of nan arguable startups that made it mainstream: Clearview AI. 

Unlike different books that floor plan a startup, astatine slightest 1 of Clearview AI’s founders partially engaged pinch Hill successful an effort to show his ain broadside of nan story, but nan journalist did a batch of activity to fact-check — and successful immoderate cases debunk — immoderate of what she heard from her institution sources. Hill is nan champion positioned writer to show nan communicative of Clearview AI aft first revealing its beingness successful 2020, which gives nan book an engaging first-person communicative successful immoderate sections. 

Cult of nan Dead Cow, Joseph Menn

Investigative cyber newsman Joseph Menn tells nan unthinkable existent backmost communicative of nan influential Cult of nan Dead Cow, 1 of nan oldest hacking supergroups from nan ’80s and ’90s, and really they helped to toggle shape nan early net into what it has go today. The group’s members see mainstream names, from tech CEOs and activists, immoderate of whom went connected to counsel presidents and attest to lawmakers, to nan information heroes who helped to unafraid overmuch of nan world’s modern technologies and communications. 

Menn’s book celebrates some what nan hackers achieved, built, and collapsed on nan measurement successful nan sanction of bettering cybersecurity, state of reside and expression, and privateness rights, and codifies nan history of nan early net hacking segment arsenic told by immoderate of nan very group who lived it. 

Hack to nan Future, Emily Crose

“Hack to nan Future” is an basal publication for anyone who wants to understand nan unthinkable and rich | history of nan hacking world and its galore cultures. The book’s author, Emily Crose, a hacker and information interrogator by trade, covers immoderate of nan earliest hacks that were rooted successful mischief, done to nan modern day, pinch nary item spared connected nan decades successful between. 

This book is profoundly researched, good represented, and some part-history and part-celebration of nan hacker organization that shape-shifted from nan curious-minded misfits whistling into a telephone to people free long-distance calls, to becoming a powerful organization wielding geopolitical powerfulness and featured prominently successful mainstream culture.

Tracers successful nan Dark, Andy Greenberg

The conception of cryptocurrency was calved successful 2008 a achromatic insubstantial published by a mysterious (and still unknown) fig called Satoshi Nakamoto. That laid nan instauration for Bitcoin, and now, almost 20 years later, crypto has go its ain manufacture and embedded itself successful nan world financial system. Crypto is besides very celebrated among hackers, from low-level scammers, to blase North Korean authorities spies and thieves. 

In this book, Wired’s Andy Greenberg specifications a bid of high-profile investigations that relied connected pursuing nan integer money done nan blockchain. Featuring question and reply pinch nan investigators who worked connected these cases, Greenberg tells nan down nan scenes of nan takedown of nan pioneering acheronian web marketplace Silk Road, arsenic good arsenic nan operations against acheronian web hacking marketplaces (Alpha Bay), and nan “world’s largest” kid intersexual maltreatment website called “Welcome to Video.”

Dark Mirror, Barton Gellman

Over a decade ago, erstwhile NSA contractor Edward Snowden blew wide unfastened nan immense standard of nan U.S. government’s world surveillance operations by leaking thousands of apical concealed files to a fistful of journalists. One of those journalists was Barton Gellman, a then-Washington Post newsman who later chronicled successful his book Dark Mirror the wrong communicative of Snowden’s first outreach and nan process of verifying and reporting nan cache of classified authorities files provided by nan whistleblower. 

From secretly tapping nan backstage fibre optic cables connecting nan datacenters of immoderate of nan world’s biggest companies, to nan covert snooping connected lawmakers and world leaders, nan files elaborate really nan National Security Agency and its world friends were tin of spying connected almost anyone successful nan world. Dark Mirror isn’t conscionable a look backmost astatine a clip successful history, but a first-person relationship of really Gellman investigated, reported, and collapsed caller crushed connected immoderate of nan astir influential and important publicity of nan 21st century, and should beryllium required reference for each cyber journalists.