EBOOK
The Ransomware Hunting Team
The Improbable Adventures of the Misfits Who Are Trying To Save the World From Cybercrime - One Hack
Renee Dudley(0)
About
A real-life technological thriller about a band of eccentric misfits taking on the biggest cybersecurity threats of our time.
Scattered across the world, an elite team of computer experts are working tirelessly on your behalf. If you've been lucky (or careful), you've probably never heard of them. But if you've downloaded a fraudulent email attachment or worked for a hospital or municipal government, chances are you're familiar with the team's sworn enemy: ransomware, and the shadowy networks of hackers and criminal gangs who use it to extort money from those whose computers they infect.
The Ransomware Hunting Team is the incredible true story of a ragtag band of "white hat"-or good-guy-hackers who use their extraordinary skills to help victims of this fast-proliferating form of cybercrime. Working in their free time from bedrooms and back offices, they offer their services pro bono to people whom the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are unwilling, or more often powerless, to help. Foremost among them is twenty-nine-year-old Michael Gillespie, who got his start cracking ransomware while working at a Nerds on Call store in Normal, Illinois. Long before he gained recognition as a world authority on cybersecurity, he survived a bout with cancer and endured long stretches of poverty that nearly cost him his house and car. Thanks to their unique combination of talents and a single-minded commitment to helping others, Gillespie and the other members of the team-among them Sarah White, a malware analyst from the London suburbs, and Fabian Wosar, the alias of a brilliant but reclusive hacker who was forced to flee his native Germany after Russian mobsters put a hit out on him-have established themselves as the go-to experts on a threat that has only recently entered the public eye.
Day after day, malware is becoming more difficult to combat, and criminals-some with ties to foreign governments-are picking bigger targets than ever before. The Ransomware Hunting Team follows the team as they respond to dire calls for help-and tracks the ups and downs of their work as they race to rescue precious files and communicate directly with their adversaries. Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden's The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller set in a dangerous new era of cybercrime.
Scattered across the world, an elite team of computer experts are working tirelessly on your behalf. If you've been lucky (or careful), you've probably never heard of them. But if you've downloaded a fraudulent email attachment or worked for a hospital or municipal government, chances are you're familiar with the team's sworn enemy: ransomware, and the shadowy networks of hackers and criminal gangs who use it to extort money from those whose computers they infect.
The Ransomware Hunting Team is the incredible true story of a ragtag band of "white hat"-or good-guy-hackers who use their extraordinary skills to help victims of this fast-proliferating form of cybercrime. Working in their free time from bedrooms and back offices, they offer their services pro bono to people whom the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are unwilling, or more often powerless, to help. Foremost among them is twenty-nine-year-old Michael Gillespie, who got his start cracking ransomware while working at a Nerds on Call store in Normal, Illinois. Long before he gained recognition as a world authority on cybersecurity, he survived a bout with cancer and endured long stretches of poverty that nearly cost him his house and car. Thanks to their unique combination of talents and a single-minded commitment to helping others, Gillespie and the other members of the team-among them Sarah White, a malware analyst from the London suburbs, and Fabian Wosar, the alias of a brilliant but reclusive hacker who was forced to flee his native Germany after Russian mobsters put a hit out on him-have established themselves as the go-to experts on a threat that has only recently entered the public eye.
Day after day, malware is becoming more difficult to combat, and criminals-some with ties to foreign governments-are picking bigger targets than ever before. The Ransomware Hunting Team follows the team as they respond to dire calls for help-and tracks the ups and downs of their work as they race to rescue precious files and communicate directly with their adversaries. Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden's The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller set in a dangerous new era of cybercrime.
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Reviews
"Dudley and Golden do a brilliant job of tracing the back-and-forth between attackers and defenders . . . [They] are highly attuned to the havoc ransomware can wreak . . . Dudley and Golden are most interested in the characters at the center of this fight . . . The book offers lively portraits of these people . . . as it traces the evolution of ransomware into a more professionalized business for
Josephine Wolff, The New York Times Book Review
"[Dudley and Golden] focus as much on people as on the computers . . . Fascinating . . . The ransomware business is complicated, ruthless, and growing fast. Those looking for a guide should start here."
The Economist