Industry of Anonymity

Inside the Business of Cybercrime

By: Jonathan Lusthaus

Narrated by: David Stifel

The most extensive account yet of the lives of cybercriminals and the vast international industry they have created, deeply sourced and based on field research in the world's technology-crime hot spots.

Cybercrime seems invisible. Attacks arrive out of nowhere, their origins hidden by layers of sophisticated technology. Only the victims are clear. But every crime has its perpetrator - specific individuals or groups sitting somewhere behind keyboards and screens. Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on the world of these cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead and the vast international industry they have created.

We are long past the age of the lone adolescent hacker tapping away in his parents' basement. Cybercrime now operates like a business. Its goods and services may be illicit, but it is highly organized, complex, driven by profit, and globally interconnected. Having traveled to cybercrime hot spots around the world to meet with hundreds of law enforcement agents, security gurus, hackers, and criminals, Lusthaus takes us inside this murky underworld and reveals how this business works. He explains the strategies criminals use to build a thriving industry in a low-trust environment characterized by a precarious combination of anonymity and teamwork.

Crime takes hold where there is more technical talent than legitimate opportunity and where authorities turn a blind eye - perhaps for a price. In the fight against cybercrime, understanding what drives people into this industry is as important as advanced security.

Based on seven years of fieldwork from Eastern Europe to West Africa, Industry of Anonymity is a compelling and revealing study of a rational business model that, however much we might wish otherwise, has become a defining feature of the modern world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Jonathan Lusthaus (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Good treatise with some gaps

While the author said it took 7 years to research (which I don't doubt), I feel the tangential aspects : (1) architecting cyber crime, (2) designing processes, attack surfaces and teams of personnel and (3) minimizing risk. would have been good treatises to discuss. There was a minimal (chapter 53) but valuable discussion on what is being done to fight it/ what should be done.

The book is focused on the daily challenges of cybercrime from within the industry. While interesting, the discussion did not discuss the connection to the types of cybercrime, how they are developed, how they integrate with the different cybercrime communities, their tooling and how law enforcement seeks to penetrate, support or deny these existing and new efforts.

Overly Pedantic and Unnecessarily Academic

Pros: Narrator wasn't bad and Russian/Eastern European content is in depth

Cons: The author spent more time explaining how the study was done, than making impactful points. He seemed to try to make his methodology bulletproof at the expense of my attention span.

Also, he missed a MASSIVE section of study in India. There are extensive teams working to industrialize cybercrime in places like Delhi. Not sure why this was overlooked.

interesting

enjoyable book about the inner workings of cyber crime. good content but unfortunately full of extremely annoying citations read by the lector. why would anyone do that in an audiobook?

It's ok... but

The Comical attempt by the narrator to put eastern accents to some of the text is very irritating, but not as irritating as the reading of the references at the end of each sentence.

Overall ok - and a deep dive into cybercrime industry - but unfortunately the spoiled by the above.

Excellent Book

Author does a great job providing historical context and key insights into aspects of cyber crime. What sets his book off from others is the analytic rigor he brings to the problem.

His survey isn’t complete, but really cannot be. Nice baseline book.