Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It [Hardcover]

"Will strengthen Clarke's claims as one of the founding fathers of cybersecurocracy....It is worth buying this book if only for his pithy five-page vision of this coming apocalypse and a return to stone-age conditions within a week, all because of a few pesky hackers and viruses."--Financial Times

Few understand the devastation cyber weapons can wreak or how the United States will use them in a crisis. Security expert Richard A. Clarke goes beyond 'geek talk' to succinctly explain how cyber weapons work and how vulnerable America is to the new world of nearly untraceable cyber criminals and spies. Clarke reveals how successful foreign cyber espionage has already penetrated the Pentagon, the control systems for U.S. electric power grids, and the defense industry. While the U.S. has not yet been attacked in a full-scale cyber war, pedabytes of information have already been stolen, including advanced research in aerospace, weapons systems, biotechnology, and engineering. From the first cyber crisis meeting in the White House to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the tunnels under Manhattan, Clarke tells the history of the first decade of this new age and the unlikely people and places at the center of this crisis. Based on interviews and first person accounts, this sobering story of technology, government, and military strategy involving criminals, spies, soldiers, and hackers begins the much needed public policy debate about what America's doctrine and strategy should be, not just for waging, but for preventing the First Cyber War.

Richard A. Clarke was the first senior White House official with responsibility for cyber war and cyber security, serving in that capacity for both President Clinton and President Bush (43). As Special Advisor to the President for Cyberspace Security, he authored the National Strategy to Defend Cyberspace. He came to that position after serving more than 25 years in intelligence, arms control, and politico-military affairs in the Pentagon, State Department, and National Security Council. He is an Adjunct Faculty member at Harvard's Kennedy School and a senior investigator in the Harvard-MIT Minerva Project on cyber war. He also serves as Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, which specialises in cyber security. Clarke is the author of two previous works of nonfiction, Against All Enemies and Your Government Failed You, and two novels, Breakpoint and The Scorpion's Gate. Robert K. Knake is a writer and researcher on homeland security issues including cyber security and critical infrastructure protection. He is currently a principal at Good Harbor Consulting, a boutique security firm in Arlington, VA. In 2008, he served on the Presidential Transition Team at the Department of Homeland Security and led the Obama for America counterterrorism policy task force during the campaign. He is a former researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He directed the 2006 Century Foundation Task Force on Homeland Security and edited the final report The Forgotten Homeland.