HACKED AGAIN: It
Can Happen to Anyone Even a Cybersecurity Expert, ISBN
978-0-9969022-1-2, by Scott N. Schober, 2016.
Available on Amazon for $14.95 in paperback.
HACKED AGAIN makes a welcome contribution to our
cyber-security literacy. This easy-to-read,
Tiger’s Eye of a book, is a must-have and must-keep-handy tool for becoming and
staying conversant on cyber-safety matters.
If you head a firm or family, but
feel too busy, anxious or uncomfortable to learn about your cyber-security, let Scott N.
Schober make your foray manageable. A software engineer, inventor and CEO of a wireless security tech firm, he writes in personal
voice and reveals his own frustrations, curiosity and reflections on the risks
of contemporary cyber-spatial life. He chronicles
his own learning curve, from his original vulnerabilities stemming from being
human, to the victimization of his firm via the exploitation of technologies by
cyber-thieves. Investigating hacks against himself and cyber-crimes
against his firm, Mr. Schober is a modern day Sherlock Holmes working the
clues, tools, evidence and psychologies of all the players – hackers, institutions
and victims. He is a clever and humble private
eye with the public’s interest at heart.
For each of us with a cyber-spatial
footprint, from simple social media profiles to email accounts to complex e-commerce platforms, HACKED AGAIN is more than a primer. It’s a mentor
for learning the lingo and the ropes and replacing the generalized anxiety we have about
cyber-security with basic competence. In less than 200 pages, we non-techies can feel more confident about
managing our digital footprints as sensibly and routinely as we protect our
brick and mortar offices and homes.
My recommendation is to start at the end with Mr. Schober’s
carefully composed glossary which removes the first obstacle to individual
cyber-vigilance – the language barrier.
If you feel that the lexicon of cyber-security is as confounding as the topic
itself, rest assured that this glossary demystifies terms from the “bot” to the
“TOR.” A handle on the acronyms and
jargon will immediately improve the ease with which you process news, instructions and information on
cyber-security matters. Then I suggest going back
to Part I to piggy-back Mr. Schober on his journey. He grows from ignorance through denial and
into reality and reconciliation with what is now, for all of us, the “new normal”
of personal, professional and civic life in our cyber-spatial world. In Part 2, he prescribes behaviors and
protocols to minimize one’s vulnerabilities and risks. He concludes each chapter with useful mini-summaries,
one paragraph “Quick-Tips” that you can apply or adopt immediately. Particularly helpful are those that are
counter-intuitive and thereby especially eye-opening and cyber-protective. One such tip is “Do not click on the bottom
of a spam e-mail and ask to be removed from the ‘Do Not E-mail’ list. You will likely receive more spam because
hackers now know you are a real person and will then sell your name for more
money to other spammers.” A reasonable
person might think that eliminating their name from such a list is wise and
lessens their unintentional digital footprint when, in fact, it expands it and
their vulnerability. They become more
likely to be cyber-stalked and have their social media accounts mined for data
and clues to their passwords.
In his latter chapters, Mr. Schober expands his probe to our
challenges as a society that shops with credit cards, banks online and works in
cyberspace. In an apolitical and
non-judgmental manner, he assesses the dynamics of headline breaches and hacks
like those that bedeviled so many at Target, JP Morgan Chase and Sony before
moving on to threats we face as a cyber-warrior nation starting with the U.S. government’s
Office of Personnel Management. Perhaps
most meaningful for us laypeople, is that at no time does Mr. Schober lose
sight of the human factors or toll as he explains the technological components
of these violations and the news coverage of them. This is
among Scott Schober’s most valuable and consistent contributions to this
field – he puts a human face on the subject of cyber-security in all its facets. And it is an accessible and welcome one. HACKED AGAIN leaves room for a future edition as Scott Schober nimbly wrestles the next generation of cyber-technologies, schemes and malicious hackers. Going forward, I hope he adds an index to the book to expedite the many references I see in my copy’s future. HACKED AGAIN is a hard-copy keeper and will be dog-eared on my bookshelf until its sequel comes along.
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