Spam Nation
Explores "the criminal masterminds driving some of the biggest spam and hacker operations targeting Americans and their bank accounts. Tracing the rise, fall, and alarming resurrection of the digital mafia behind the two largest spam pharmacies--and countless viruses, phishing, and spyware attacks--he delivers the first definitive narrative of the global spam problem and its threat to consumers everywhere"--Amazon.com.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
15mentions
14people
2015–2024years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Krebs is a national treasure. If you ever read his book "SPAM NATION", you'd see how valuable he is. He stood up to Russian cybercrime in the 00s who even tried to threaten his life. He got bulletproof hosters taken-down again and again. These hosters were hosting phrama scams, spam, malware, CP, you name it. He consistently works in the interest of the public good, even when it's hard.
Brian works hard for his money, unlike upstart cybercrime braggarts like the guy he's exposing. I'm so happy people like Brian exist, people like him have the motivation and time to investigate hubris-laden morons like Devon Turner.
- I've looked at recommendations in 25 articles and compiled a list of the most recommended books on cybersecurity sorted by how often they were mentioned.
Hacking Exposed 7 by Stuart McClure
Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter
Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick
Spam Nation by Brian Krebs
Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski
Threat Modeling by Adam Shostack
Social Engineering by Christopher Hadnagy
The Hacker Playbook 3 by Peter Kim
The Practice of Network Security Monitoring by Richard Bejtlich
Dark Territory by Fred Kaplan
The Code Book by Simon Singh
Hacked Again by Scott N. Schober
The Hacker Playbook by Peter Kim
The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick
See the full list at https://www.readthistwice.com/lists/best-cybersecurity-books
- I recommend reading the book "Spam Nation" by Brian Krebs(sp?). He goes into the different motives behind spam, the big actors, and how people get paid for creating spam.
- I enjoyed all these. All of them are worth a read.
Business / Tech Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is. Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More: Working with People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, Now! Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing. Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-From Global Epidemic to Your Front Door. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Badass: Making Users Awesome. Social Engineering in IT Security: Tools, Tactics, and Techniques. How to Make Sense of Any Mess: Information Architecture for Everybody. Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The Global War for Internet Governance. Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. High Noon: The Inside Story of Scott McNealy and the Rise of Sun Microsystems. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. The Soul of A New Machine. Hot Spots: Why Some Companies Buzz with Energy and Innovation - And Others Don't. A Computer Called LEO: Lyons Tea Shops and the World's First Office Computer. Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron. The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing. What's Mine Is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live. Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network. The Undersea Network (Sign, Storage, Transmission). Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. Meaningful: The Story of Ideas That Fly. Zero Bugs and Program Faster. Official Criticism Manual: Perfecting the Art of Giving and Receiving Criticism. Hacking Wireless Access Points: Cracking, Tracking, and Signal Jacking. Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test! Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. The Accidental Project Manager. Building Successful Communities of Practice. Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories. More Fearless Change: Strategies for Making Your Ideas Happen. Security and Usability: Designing Secure Systems that People Can Use. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. The Well: The Epic History of the First Online Community. Programmers at Work.
Science The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Hidden Figures Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Knocking On Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate our Universe Sightlines An Ocean of Air: A Natural History of the Atmosphere Snowball Earth: The Story of the Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know it Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error: The Meaning of Error in an Age of Certainty Mycophilia Packing for Mars: The Curious Science Of Life In Space No Logo King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry The Ghosts Of Evolution Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, And Other Ecological Anachronisms Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA Growing Up Boeing: The Early Jet Age Through the Eyes of a Test Pilot's Daughter Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 bath Toys Lost at Sea Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science
World / Politics / Other Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power The New Jim Crow The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion The irregulars : Roald Dahl and the British spy ring in wartime Washington Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing The Gift of Fear
- On the topic of Non-fiction cybercrime books, one that provides very good insight imho on the history of spam albeit a little hard to follow is "Spam Nation", by Brian Krebs
- Spam Nation by Brian Krebs is excellent. It delves deep into the email spam scene, and covers some big events and the people around it. He talks to users which buy stuff they are advertised in spam emails, and looks into the quality of the products advertised (are the viagra pills safe?).
The book is not very technical, and he never digs deeper into the details than what is necessary.
