Kim ZetterReseñas

"A new age of mass destruction will begin in an effort to close a chapter from the first age of mass destruction."
A dense (but engrossing) read, this is about Stuxnet, the game-changing virus/worm that signalled the age of cyberwarfare.
Since this is a true story (and not based on one), it becomes a drudgery to wade through the 'boring' parts, but it is all made up for in the last third of the work, which details how the world landscape was changed irrevocably (for the worse) through trying to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
TL;DR - reads like an expanded magazine article series, read if you can withstand factual writing which looks to be techno-babble, but don't read it if you want some sort of 'excitement' in your 'plot'.

pick up on page 206

It strikes me that Kabbalah is a topic about which endless tomes could be written pertaining to the smallest minutiae.

What I appreciate about this book is that it includes some of the practical aspects of incorporating each sefira, and it was also very sensibly and straightforwardly written (as opposed to, say, The Way by Michael Berg, which is difficult to read).

I would actually give this 4.5 stars if I could. It is a thorough and complex look at Stuxnet and the issues surrounding cyber warfare that reads almost like a thriller. It goes into technical detail without getting too bogged down. It can be occasionally difficult to follow but that may be unavoidable given the subject. I think the author does a good job of considering the consequences of opening up this Pandora's Box.

An excellent account of Stuxnet. As a subject matter expert employed in the field, I watched this intently as it unfolded, and was familiar with much of the material in the book, but still found it enjoyable and informative. For anyone who hasn't been following Stuxnet and related issues closely, this book would be an excellent introduction. Even without a technical background, it would be easy to follow the human and political implications.


(Second book I've read this year (audible audiobook, in this case, unabridged))

Nerd level 10! Great story. Some really good, deep investigative journalism. Quoted a lot froM Sanger book, so read that one as well. Very enjoyable. Described the hack with a level of detail that didnt overwhelm the non-computer science nerd. And a very impressive piece of malwaare that was built. Also liked that she talked a bit about the ethical implications of a virus like stuxnet.½

9/10

As others have said, a once over of the stuxnet phenomenon and the larger Flame system of which it is a part.

Easy going, nothing challenging, but some good bits and pieces for the already informed reader. Great place to start for the new entrant.

One big problem is that, through out the book, runs a weird, continuous, implied moral justification for the attack on Iran's nuclear program an attack by two rogue nuclear powers: Israel and the USA.

An easy read, it's fine.

Another audiobook from my walks.

Cyber warfare. It sounds like a movie plot or a good science fiction book. But it is real, very real as it turns out. Computer hacking has matured from hackers turning on sprinklers inside schools after falling for the “Did you see the swimming pool on the roof?” prank. Hacking has moved from pranks, to stealing identities and funds, to now destroying the infrastructures of nations. Once again, it is America that launched a weapon capable of mass destruction first with Stuxnet.

The story starts with a small group at Symantec who run across an inquiry about a laptop that kept shutting down and rebooting in an endless cycle. They got a copy of the file causing the problems and began investigating. The virus, however, had limited circulation and fell from the interest of the computer security world. The small group at Symantec continued to work and on the virus thinking it was something more than it appeared and as it turned out, it was huge. Here was a virus more complex than expected and it had a very narrow mission. It worked quietly and slowly inflicting its damage on the Iranian nuclear program while limiting nearly all collateral damage.

This is a cyber attack that seemed to walk out of an X-Files episode. While investigating the virus no one interfered with the group. When approaching US government agencies, they all seemed interested but denied knowledge in a convincing way. This appeared to be the first digital attack directed at a nation and it came with a great deal of stealth and surprise. In fact, the target didn't even realize it was being attacked.

Much of the United States infrastructure, like the power industry, is controlled by computers with an internet connection and probably a Windows operating system which means it can be hacked, or corrupted with a USB flash drive. The attack’s origin can hidden or made to appear to come from elsewhere. For example, the recent attack on Sony has been blamed on North Korea. Although North Korea was happy to take credit for the attack, security experts doubt it came from North Korea and the FBI evidence is far from convincing.

I will admit that I never heard of Stuxnet before listening to this book. Perhaps that is part of my surprise and interest in the book. I guess too, I really should not be surprised that governments, my own included, are involved in, buying zero-day exploits. I also think I would be happier if more was done in closing security holes rather than using them as weapons. Here firewalls and virus protection do not work because they search for known issues and behaviors, not new ones. As we become more dependent on computers for just about every aspect of our lives, the more they become a target from not only hostile nations, but hostile groups. A terrorist group may not have the technology or materials to build a nuclear weapon, but building a digital weapon is another matter and can be equally as destructive. A digital weapon can be completely anonymous or blame can easily and convincingly pointed elsewhere.

The true story told in the book is great. The information provided is enlightening and shows what governments are doing. If it wasn’t for a couple of guys with suspicion, Stuxnet probably could have run undetected a great deal longer. The genie is out of the bottle and now we wait and see if it’s an Ifrit.

In the acknowledgments Zetter writes of the difficulty of "Combining a narrative structure with complex technical details and a political-historical context that was as convoluted as the code, while still offering a compelling read and doing justice to the intense labor that researchers invested in their analysis of the code" -- which pretty much sums up her achievement. Inevitably some sections are less exciting than others, and in an ideal world all of those different strands might have been more closely integrated, but overall this book should serve as a model for serious popular non-fiction.

It was clearly deeply researched, and you can tell from both the main text and the footnotes how much effort and thought Zetter (as well, of course, as the experts she cites) put into piecing together the story and unravelling various small and large mysteries. The book is fairly dense with detail but still (mostly) flows as a compelling story, which is quite a balancing act. The technical explanations are very well done: Zetter doesn't assume a knowledgable reader, and of course she can't go right down to textbook-level detail, but she rejects the easy out of relying on fake explanation and meaningless metaphor -- as far as I can tell, her descriptions of how the malware works are about as accurate and detailed as is compatible with accessibility and ease of reading.

Excellent resource on the Stuxnet malware and the political implications.

Countdown to Zero is an interesting look at the Stuxnet and Duqu attacks that were targeted at the Iranian nuclear programs between 2007 and 2012. The book is exceptional when the author is dealing with the details of the malware attacks: how they were discovered, how the technical teams from various research and antivirus companies pulled the attacks apart. Other parts, dealing with some of the background politics, is less gripping and, particularly in the last chapter, I found myself skipping ahead. For anyone - like me - who only recalled vague references to these attacks, it is an excellent overview of the lead up to using highly-targeted cyber warfare attacks on industrial control units. The author tells a compelling story and it's easy to imagine other nation-states (or those who wish to be) and criminals using similar approaches in the future.

Kim Zetter did a good job of making one thing at least abundantly clear: Any party with enough funding and motivation can breach the security of any system no matter how remote the system is or how complex the task of doing so might be.

Stuxnet has marked a new era in cybersecurity, in a way that pretty much every malware designed before it is BS—Before Stuxnet. It's an intricate, vicious and remarkable cyber weapon designed by NSA and the 8200 Israeli unit to slow down and set back the Iranian nuclear program. It targeted the centrifuges at the Natanz plant and worked in a way that made it very hard to detect.

This whole thing reminds me of the movie Who Am I:

MRX's three rules:
1. No system is safe.
2. Aim for the impossible.
3. Have fun in cyberspace and meatspace.

Quotes from the book:

One thing, however, seems certain: given the varied and extensive possibilities for conducting such attacks, and the proof of concept provided by Stuxnet, it is only a matter of time until the lure of the digital assult becomes too irresistible for someone to pass up.

Symantec's Eric Chien wrote that whether Stuxnet would usher in a new generation of real-world attacks that targeted critical infrastructure or was just a once-in-a-decade phenomenon, they couldn't say. But he was clear about his preference. It was the type of threat, he said, "we hope to never see again".

This is a very informative book. Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon tells how stuxnet it was found by tech-support technicians at VirusBlokAda. At VirusBlokAda it was mainly O'Murchu and Chien that took apart Stuxnet in reverse to see what this virus/worm was made to do. They found it was only to attack specific computers and for what I think was a good reason. The book also discusses in great detail Iran's nuclear program. As we all know they are non-compliant with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), The foreign ministers from France, Germany and the UK (EU3), also the U.S.A. and many other places such as Israel, Egypt also Saudi Arabia. You will learn in great detail about transforming one type of nuclear matter into another. I came away from this book not only learning what kinds of virus's exist but how they work. The fact that if you have enough money you can buy any type of virus, worm, etc. due to the fact that there are actual businesses that exist that look for exploits in all computer programs and sell them. I found that amazing. Stuxnet showed everyone how dangerous Iran's nuclear program was to the whole world. But this is just a tip of the iceberg of what the book is truly about. The book has great footnotes throughout that lists the writers sources and explains information that would otherwise make it a thousand page book. You will find that the footnotes are worth reading! I think this book would be a good read for people interested in computers, nuclear programs and Iran.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Fascinating story about the development, implementation, and eventual discovery of the Stuxnet virus, along with a discussion of the implications for the industrial PLC systems that control our critical infrastructure.½

Comprehensive data on Stuxnet Digital Weapon. Very nicely presented and researched. Bit technical at times which may put down some readers but that was essential. Would highly recommend tech people. the shear magnitude and thought process is amazing to say the least.
Couple of chapters where a drag (personally) where author was trying to prepare the context of industrial attack and the last chapter which was a precedent of what to expect in future. Rest was great..

I really thought this book had a lot of potential and I was looking for something different than what I normally read. However, the writing was so dry that I had trouble staying focused on the book. It also didn't really seem believable the way it was presented. It needs a more dynamic approach to capture the attention of the reader.

Countdown to Zero Day is a non-fiction explanation of the creation and far-reaching effects of the Stuxnet virus and its family (Duqu and Flame). It goes in-depth on the technical aspects but also the social implications of the new "theater of war", the internet. I don't usually read compsci books but I found this well written, well researched, and fascinating. Recommend!

Countdown to Zero Day reads like a good spy novel-the writing is fast-paced, and not over burdened by an abundance of tech-speak. There are more than enough citations to references, offering the reader the opportunity to further investigate on their own. Zetter has done a good job of collecting all of the disparate pieces, and weaving them together to form a cohesive explanation of how Stuxnet came about, and what implications we will be dealing with moving forward.


Highly recommended for anyone interested in technology, politics, espionage and most importantly, those who study the changing nature of modern warfare. Four stars

Read the full review in The Thugbrarian Review @ http://wp.me/p4pAFB-rY

The US military has recognized a 5th realm of combat after land, sea, air and space: digital. Stuxnet is the world's first "kinetic" digital weapon created by a nation state to attack another. It is the opening salvo of a wild world of warfare in which countries everywhere are currently arming up acquiring digital weapons and exploits. This excellent book is the right balance of technical and general. It helps to have some background in computers because the topic is by nature complex and it's a long book. It's not sensationalize but also is very clear that we have entered a new era of warfare the likes of which has never before been seen. Most are unaware of what is happening, rather focused on personal privacy issues with the NSA. Nation states have huge budgets to build digital weapons that far surpass lone hackers. There are teams of experienced experts creating NASA-scale projects to destroy enemy targets - anything controlled by a computer: dams, airplanes, electric grids, hospitals, etc.. everything that matters in industrialized countries. It remains unknown how real this type of war becomes, but Stuxnet has already happened and is a historic moment in warfare.

An excellent book that covers Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, but also something of the geopolitical intrigue surrounding them. It's intelligently written and, for a popular book, very well referenced. The only negative is that I would have preferred the three parts of the story (discovery, design and effect) to be weaved together rather than separated out.½

I requested this book through the Early Reviewers thinking it was fiction. It was my fault I didn't read the full description. I just seen something about computer virus and hit the request button.
It turned out to be the true account of Stuxnet, the first digital weapon. From its discovery, to its mysteries being unraveled the story of Stuxnet is fascinating. It was designed to infect specific machines and had the opportunity to infect many more but didn't. It would only unpack its payload if certain criteria were met.
Overall the book was very good. A lot of detail which is great. The only downside and the reason I didn't give it five stars was how long it took me to read it, which in all honesty wasn't the book's fault.½

Zetter has written a detailed and accessible history of the Stuxnet virus. Along the way she comments of the implications that Stuxnet has for cyber conflict more generally. An excellent case study in cyber capabilities.

Zetter tells the story of Stuxnet, a remarkable piece of malware intended to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. The narrative is both technical and political, and Zetter fuses both stories into a compelling whole.

The technical bits read like a hacker's detective story, as computer security professionals piece together clues about what the virus does and why. I found Zetter's discussion quite easy to follow, despite Stuxnet's Byzantine structure and objectives.

The political reporting is also thorough and enlightening. I remember watching and reading news reports drawing contradictory conclusions about Iran's nuclear capabilities. Zetter's details provide a context for all of those mixed signals.

Altogether, it's an accessible account of a complicated subject in a complicated context. Recommended.

Countdown to Zero Day is the story of the discovery and decoding of "the world's first digital weapon," Stuxnet. Personally I think that subtitle is a little hyperbolic, but subtitles need to be, to sell copies. Stuxnet was used to infect and disable machinery used in Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

This book is like a fantastic beach read for a certain kind of computer geek. And I mean that as a compliment (it's also sort of a contradiction: what self-respecting computer geek hangs out on a beach?).

Zetter spins a fast-paced, exciting story that has all the elements of a great thriller -- plus the added appeal of being true. It's the best cyber-crime tale I've read since Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg. She also makes the "cyber" part of the story (an admittedly pretty large part of this) very accessible to people who aren't compulsive techies, though I suspect one would have to have some interest in computers and coding for the book to be interesting at all. Zetter wisely squirrels many of the gorier details away in extensive footnotes, keeping the main narrative swift and deadly.

It even has compelling characters.

The only thing that keeps this from being completely top shelf for me is ... wait for it ... it's about security holes in the Windows operating system which, ultimately, is kind of like talking about peanuts in peanut butter.