What are the facts behind the cyberattacks that regularly hit the news headlines? This book provides a lively illustration of the manifold and surprisingly unchanging techniques with which both criminals and secret services infiltrate other people's computers, accessing and sometimes manipulating their data.
Starting with the basics and shunning superfluous technical information, it describes hacking procedures in just enough detail to leave the reader with an accurate sense of how they work and backs up the explanations with engaging accounts of past attacks on companies, governments and individuals. The topics covered include:
- How attackers abuse the fabric of the internet to forge messages and bring down websites
- How viruses, worms, ransomware and individual hackers exploit loopholes in existing software
- How blockchain enables Bitcoin, and how Bitcoin and Tor keep criminals anonymous on the dark web
- How encryption works and how encryption methods have been cracked
- How the Internet of Things is a hacker's dream and cyberwar is a nation's nightmare