America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare Hardcover – 29 Sep 2011

There are a number of books available on the subjects of cyberwarfare, cybercrime, and state-sponsored espionage. The majority of these books tend to address only one of these subjects. The best of them provide nuanced, in-depth treatments of their subjects, but demand a specialized, pre-existent body-of-knowledge in order to be fully appreciated. Unfortunately, the worst of these books are often those aimed at a general audience, where an intelligent discussion of the real issues at hand is often exchanged for anxiety and hyperbole.

Joel Brenner's _America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare_ is a brilliant exception to both of these categories. Mr. Brenner may be uniquely-positioned to write this work-- he is trained as both a lawyer and an economist, and he has served as the United States' National Counterintelligence Executive and as Senior Counsel at the National Security Agency. He has first-hand exposure to the problems posed by cyberwarfare, cybercrime, and cyber-espionage, and possesses both the intellect and analytic toolsets with which to approach these problems.

Mr. Brenner begins by outlining the different problem-spaces-- cybercrime, the electronic theft of intellectual property, threats to weapons systems from compromised components, threats to the national powergrid-- by drawing on individual cases and events, and weaving them into a comprehensive narrative. Mr. Brenner painstakingly backs up his observations with almost 500 footnotes. (As a practitioner working in this space, I am familiar with the majority of what Mr. Brenner discusses in _America the Vulnerable_, and I still came away with much excellent supplementary reading material courtesy of the well-sourced research.) He continues with an excellent predictive scenario-- "June 2017"-- which synthesizes all of the previous work and makes explicit the cumulative threat.

Next, Mr. Brenner undertakes a discussion of how the gathering of intelligence and the protection of secrets has been fundamentally altered by information's transitus into searchable, indexed digital media. He concludes with a chapter entitled "Managing the Mess", where he lays out a number of responses to the current problems, encompassing shifts in public policy, as well as practical operational responses to business in a world rich in emergent, disruptive technologies.

Mr. Brenner's ability to make technical attacks and weaknesses clear to less-technical readers is impressive. No prior background in information technology is necessary to read and understand this book; however, Mr. Brenner has been meticulous in his explanations of complex technologies, and information security professionals will clearly recognize the issues under discussion. Personally, this book will greatly benefit me when I have to articulate certain risks to my executive management team.

By its very nature, this book must be a survey-- Joel Brenner cannot completely plumb all the subjects he is addressing in a 320 page book, and some specialists may yearn for more in-depth discussion on areas of particular interest to them. That being said, I think Mr. Brenner has achieved something powerful here-- he is articulating technical, economic, and legal problems to non-specialists while retaining a maximum of complexity and nuance. And, he has some logical, *actionable* responses to the problem-space. Bravo!

like ice water being thrown on you. This book is a sobering reminder of what can happen when we as a country think they are the best and the strongest . . . the all powerful. So much of this book focuses on China being one of the sources of these asymmetric cyberattacks. I would like to think that the very nature of cyberwarfare does not come from a country but from an organized ideology. Joe Brenner does a excellent job at point out where the country's weakness in a thought provoking manner. I wish our leaders and educators would read this book and prepare the country NOW for this type of "new" war. This should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in cyberwarfare.

This book masterfully outlines the cyber vulnerabilities of the United States and helps readers to understand why we should be worried and pay much more attention to our own privacy and security. Brenner is a National Security Agency insider who writes with first-hand experience. I am an Intelligence Studies student and a former government employee and this book has been a tremendous reference and resource for me. I urge you all to read it carefully and pay much more attention to how you handle your online lives.

Good information. Written like a military paper, very dry but full of information. American isn't completely serious about security. To tighten up our borders will create a big problem for importing merchandise into the country. Perhaps if we would get serious about putting America back to work in factories we could cut back on imports. Factory's may pollute but but they create jobs and actual products that can be sold in America and abroad. Bring back the factories and don't charge them any tax for ten years but get them back while we still can. The amount of secrets about production and materials that are being exported along with jobs is staggering. America could still be producing rather than consuming if we didn't try and tax the daylights out of anybody that makes a dime or a dollar. Gert America back to work...

"I had no idea" pretty much sums up my reaction to the first part of this book, which describes our rather shocking national and business vulverability to "bad guys" and "bad countries" in the digital age. Certainly, it is a wake up call to the dark side of the productivity, social and communications benefits of our digital age.

Perhaps what I appreciate most, however, is that the book does not stop there -- it continues to outline public policy and business responses that might be feasible and that we should all certainly consider. In short, this is more than a mere litany of complaints/concerns and also a thoughtful start toward "doing something constructive" about the serious issues raised.

Remarkably well written despite the serousness of the subject.

Strongly recommend that everyone should read.