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The cover of The Hacker and the State

The Hacker and the State

Ben Buchanan

Has hacking become a fundamental, if mostly secret, tool of how states compete with one another?

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At a glance

Author
Ben Buchanan

Why read it

  • You will understand why hacking is so versatile at shaping what rival states can do
  • You will see why hacking is a weak way for states to send signals to one another
  • You will learn why hacking tools a government hoards can leak and fuel some of the most destructive attacks in history

Who it is for

  • A security professional who wants the strategic picture behind attacks
  • A policy student studying cyber conflict between states
  • A news reader puzzled by stories of spies and cyber attacks

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Signaling and Shaping
  3. How Hackers Change Statecraft
  4. PART ONE
  5. ESPIONAGE
  6. Exploiting Home-Field Advantage
  7. Why History and Geography Matter
  8. Spying on the Backbone of the Internet
  9. Partnering with Internet Platforms
  10. Wiretapping the World
  11. “Just Plain Awesome!”
  12. Defeating Encryption
  13. Nobody But Us
  14. Defeating Cellular Encryption
  15. Cable Taps and a Smiley Face
  16. Building a Backdoor
  17. Minding P’s and Q’s
  18. A Series of Unfortunate—Or Malicious—Events
  19. Two New Backdoors
  20. Short-Lived Victory
  21. Strategic Espionage
  22. Operation Aurora
  23. Unit 61398
  24. Hacking for Military Advantage
  25. Spying On Everyone
  26. Counterintelligence
  27. Hacking the Hackers
  28. Tracking the Hackers
  29. Fourth-Party Collection
  30. PART TWO
  31. ATTACK
  32. Strategic Sabotage
  33. A Worm Is Born
  34. Discovery
  35. Wiper
  36. The Power To Thwart
  37. Targeted Disruption
  38. Shamoon
  39. Operation Ababil
  40. Sands Casino
  41. Signals Full of Sound and Fury
  42. Coercion
  43. The Attack
  44. The Leaks
  45. To Release or Not To Release?
  46. The Failure of Cyber Coercion
  47. Testing and Demonstration
  48. The First Blackout
  49. The Second Blackout
  50. Just A Test?
  51. PART THREE
  52. DESTABILIZATION
  53. Election Interference
  54. Democrats in the Crosshairs
  55. A New Arrival
  56. Going Public
  57. Amplification
  58. A Simple Machine
  59. Exposure
  60. The Shadow Brokers

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