Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat

Dawn of the Code War, by John P. Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for National Security under Barack Obama, begins with a brief history of how the internet came to be, and tells the story of how law enforcement and the Intelligence Community (IC) have grown and transformed on many fronts: from being insular organizations to information-sharing, both interdepartmentally and between other members of the IC, as well as the private sector; from physical criminal investigations to cyberthreats; and from antiquated record-keeping on vintage computer systems to more modern methods. The book is an easy and engaging read, as Carlin gives an insider's view and walks the reader through the nuances of several major cyber attacks, including the actors, methods, and usually catastrophic results. It's a great recap and explanation of the terms that may have been heard in passing, such as Stuxnet, Mirai, Zeus, and the ever-present fake news. The book is conveniently broken down into chapters that address each principal nation-state threat – China, North Korea, Iran and Russia – and the similarities and differences in their methods and motivations. The author gives some reasons for the low rate of prosecution of nation-state actors. He portrays the IC as a snarling dog on a leash being held by the diplomats and economic advisors who fear repercussions such as loss of access to China's market, fear for the safety of their employees, or simply fear the unknown. Some have even willingly traded their intellectual property in exchange for market access. Carlin's main solutions to the problem of cyberthreats, naming and shaming and imposing sanctions, hinge on one of the most difficult aspects of prosecuting cybercrime – that of attribution, or being certain about whose fingers were on the keyboard when the attack occurred. He goes into some detail, explaining how each hacker's code has a recognizable style and how his team examines the "hop points", routers that the hackers use, that reveal their other activities and tie them to the crime as well as enlisting the help of private sector tech firms, such as Mandiant and other sources, like Human Intelligence, to correlate their suspicions. Industry experts remain skeptical, however. The electronic packets that contain the malware, according to Bruce Schneier do not have reliable return addresses, and there's no way to tell if the computer that sent the package hasn't, itself, been hacked. Carlin trumpets the certainty with which the Sony hack can be attributed to North Korea. Other security professionals have reason to doubt. Sony has made many enemies among the hacker community. In 2005, Sony put DRM on their CDs, and they sued 17-year-old George Hotz and several others for hacking their Playstations. Anonymous struck Sony on their behalf, followed by LulzSec, who gained information from more than one million accounts, which they say was unencrypted and easy to find. Passwords were stored in plain text. Sony was an easy target and perceived as a bully by the hacker community. Thus, means, motive and opportunity. Attribution is made even more difficult when politics are involved, and the Commander-in-Chief dismisses the integrity of IC intelligence, as is the case with the recent Russian attack on U.S elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, questioning the evidence that Russia was involved, and went as far as to accuse the IC of taking sides, saying, "You intelligence people shouldn't let yourself be used." Carlin makes some other interesting points. While he notes the common observation that humans, being lazy, forgetful and distractible, will always be the weak link in the security chain, he observes that the hackers are human, too, and possess the same vulnerabilities. Another point is that, along with training users to be more aware of the threats, more cooperation is required between the government and private sectors. This may prove difficult, because, as Carlin states, "...of the nine or so agencies that exist to deal with cybersecurity, some want to help, but others want to punish." He postulates that as more cases are brought, more companies will realize that they are not alone, and there will be less stigma and embarrassment attached to the incidents. In the long term, Carlin is holding out hope for a technologically innovative Moon shot solution, but in the meantime, along with the aforementioned sanctions, he states that better resilience is needed so that organizations are able to recover quickly when the inevitable breach occurs, and more thorough risk management determinations will help organizations prioritize assets. Also recommended are solutions such as Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC) which makes domain spoofing impossible. Despite the current, bleak cybersecurity climate, he remains optimistic. Given that he has a young daughter who stands to inherit our digital future, the alternative is too unpleasant to consider.

This is a difficult book to read for people who just want government to work well. Even as we see too many elected officials who view everything in a political context, it’s important to realize how many dedicated public servants work in the shadows on incredibly difficult challenges in order to secure our country’s freedom and global leadership. As a former senior state official, I appreciate the work of career government employees, and I am appalled that our elected leaders often can’t set aside partisan differences to work on truly important challenges that face federal state and local government.This is an important book that, all about five years old, it’s highly relevant to the challenge we face as our lives are more and more in twined with online services Starting in K-12, we need to focus on responsible online behavior and sound ethical training. We need a public who will demand far more from our elected officials in the code wars.

“Overall, Code War’s is a good book to read for historical reference to all of the major malware attacks launched by China and Russia, homegrown and the Middle East and to understand the inner workings of the FBI and how it fought cybercrime.”Sherill. S

Former Assistant Attorney General for National Security and author of Dawn of the Code War has written a very detailed book about the current state of cybersecurity by tracing the development of law enforcement against cyber crimes. He explains the issues by referencing back to the earlier attacks since 1980’s such as the famous national-scale computer crime committed by Robert T. Morris, the son of NSA scientist. He also speaks greatly about terrorism side of cyber and its historic evolution of this effort in the National Security Division and the government. Foreign adversaries such as Iran, China, Russia and North Korea are highlighted as potential threats across the intelligence community. An entire chapter is dedicated to cyber crime activities committed by the Iranian government who have politically have had a turbulent relationship with the U.S since the Iranian revolution in 1979. This 403 page book is an easy for all age groups who want to understand the severity of current cybersecurity and the U.S's involvement along with other allied governments who are gradually working to make improved laws to protect its citizens for adverse circumstances.

This book written by Carlin and Garrett did a very effective job on showing the cyber war we are currently going against with China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. They went through some of the attacks that happened and what the government did to take as preventive measures. they went over tools that were used by the government, big organizations and some of the legal actions that were taken by them as a result of security breaches. Overall it is a great read that I enjoyed!!

Written by a lawyer seeking career advancement. Very disheartening to see Washington approach to fighting a major issue confronting our country today. All this book does is to demonstrate how bureaucrats approach an issue. A dozen (and probably more) totally independent cyber security groups, all often without sharing information, are created supposedly to solve some shortcoming of an existing group. Of course each new group get headed up by yet another career advancement type. The cyber black hatters get away with all their shenanigans and Washington simply creates another group. And people wonder what is wrong with Washington today. Too many lawyers!

Although most of us are aware of cyber crime, a read like this book brings home the extent of this ”movement”, and the risks all of us run on a daily basis. Because we are connected, we are vulnerable. Carlin describes on a good level a development of cyber attacks, and the reaction from industry and government agencies. This is a good inspirational read for my to-do list for this and the coming years.

Les interesting than i thought. This is essentially a personal history, so many events outside the remit of the author are given limited coverage. I was looking for something more comprehensive.

著者John P. Carlinは、オバマ政権で国家安全保障の司法副長官として、テロ、スパイ、サイバー攻撃などを担当した法務官僚である。ハーバード大学ロースクールを修了後、FBIの検察官として、知的財産権、テロ対策、サイバー犯罪などに携わった経歴があり、現在はリスク管理・危機管理の専門家として法律事務所を経営している。共著者のGarrett M. Graffは、サイバーセキュリティーと関連技術を専門とするジャーナリストである。Christian Brose, ”The Kill Chain”,2020を読んで、ごく簡単にだが、現代では「サイバー戦争」が新しい課題として問題化しつつある、との記述があったので、サイバー戦争、あるいはサイバーによる新しい脅威について知りたいと思い、アマゾンのホームぺージをじっくり探して、この本を選択した。”The Kill Chain”のときも同じだが、在野の無責任な学者や評論家の著作より、政府中枢に近いところで実務をあつかった人物の著作の方が得るところが多いのではないか、と考えて選択した結果である。サイバーセキュリティーの問題は、インターネットが本格的に普及しはじめた1990年代ころからの高々30年間に急増し、リアル空間の戦争とは位相が異なるものの、新たな、アイマイな、複雑かつ深刻な脅威として存在している。本書はサイバー脅威について、歴史の概要を紹介したうえで、著者John P. Carlinがオバマ政権時代の8年間にアメリカが実際に経験した事件を題材に、きわめて具体的・詳細に論述している。サイバー攻撃の目的は、ターゲットに対して、カネを奪う、いやがらせを加える、高度技術・国家機密・企業秘密を盗む、文化・価値観を棄損する、リアル空間の戦争と組みあわせて攻撃力を高める、などきわめて多様である。サイバー空間の行為というヴァーチャルな事象だが、被害あるいは効果は甚大となり得る。アメリカが具体的にサイバー脅威の敵と当面みなしているのは、中国・ロシア・イラン・北朝鮮の4か国と、非国家的存在としてのISILである。中国は、アメリカにとってサイバー空間での最大の敵であり、とくに技術情報・企業機密などの窃盗は範囲も規模も莫大である。アメリカが資本と時間を投入して達成した先端技術を盗み、経済情報を盗み、コストフリーで自国の技術革新と経済成長の達成に邁進している。さらに軍事力の強化のために、アメリカの軍事技術・軍事機密も常に狙っている。そのうえアメリカ人の個人情報や富裕層の購買動向など、これまでスパイ活動の対象と想定できなかった範囲にまで活動を広げていて、不気味である。実行犯が逮捕され起訴されたときは訴訟過程の情報を盗んで、裁判を有利に進めようとするような、確信犯として行き届いた動きまである。中国共産党のもと人民解放軍が元締めとなって、国を挙げてリアル空間とともにサイバー空間でも組織的なスパイ活動を、あたかも国家ビジネスのように、ホワイトカラーの通常勤務の時間帯で遂行しているのが特徴である。中国は、巨大な購買力をバーゲイニング・パワーとして、アメリカ企業に対して圧力をかけるのに最大限活用している面もある。ロシアは、旧ソ連以来の技術と人材の蓄積があり、サイバー攻撃の技術はもっとも進んでいる。アメリカなど西側世界の民主主義に鋭く対決するとともに、新しいマフィアのようにあらゆる犯罪をサイバー空間でしかけてくる。アメリカのみならず西側諸国の軍へのさまざまなサイバー攻撃も多い。アメリカ大統領選挙へのサイバー攻撃による干渉など、従来のサイバー攻撃に見られなかったような、アメリカの民主主義への不信感醸成を図るような行動もする。リアル空間での戦争に並行して、サイバー攻撃をかけて戦争を有利にすることも実行している。イランは、アメリカとイスラエルに徹底的に敵対し、カネ・技術のみならずアメリカ社会の不安定化を狙って大胆なサイバー攻撃をしかけてくる。国内の反体制派に対するサイバー攻撃も多い。シリアのシリア電子軍は、リアル空間の実際の戦争に並行してサイバー攻撃をする。シリア内の反体制派とは、サイバー空間でも対決と小競り合いが続いている。またアメリカのメディアのネットワークに侵入してフェイクニュースを流し、アメリカ社会を混乱させたこともある。北朝鮮は、飢渇を免れようとカネを奪うことに熱心だが、ときに自国トップの権威・メンツの誇示のために、意外で特異なサイバー攻撃をしかけてくる。ISILは、ホーム・グローン・テロリズムの宣伝と、ジハード戦士のリクルート活動が中心である。われわれの日常生活は、広く深くインターネットに依存しているが、インターネットの通信網自身も、それに接続されるさまざまな要素も、すべて脆弱性を免れ得ず、サイバー脅威は根絶できる見込みはない。さらにサイバー犯罪は立証が容易でなく訴追に労力を要する。それでもリスクを正しく認識して正しく運用し、国家の諜報情報を併用・活用しながら、良心を維持する勢力が官民で協力して努力するならば、技術と法律とで抑制できる問題なのだ、と著者は自らの経験を踏まえて主張している。私は、これまで日本に生活していて、この本に出てくるようなサイバー攻撃の存在をほとんど知らなかったので、ずいぶん参考にもなり、新たに知ることが多かった。しかしいずれ他人ごとでは済まなくなる時がくるのだろう。サイバー問題の最前線で活動していた著者の詳細で具体的な叙述は、とても迫力があり、興味深かった。本としての文章は、論理的で整理されていて読みにくいわけではないが、単語が通常よりかなり難しい。いささか文章も長めで、私は読み進めるのに多少苦労した。