norb reviewed The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll
Engrossing Read On the History of Cybersecurity Incident Response
4 stars
I've had this book recommended to me personally as well on several lists of "cybersecurity books everyone should read" so I finally got around to reading it.
The story, while slightly repetitive, unfolds in a first person, linear style. I found the book easy to read, and while the cybersecurity ideas presented seems commonplace today, I think they were probably groundbreaking when the book came out.
I found it fascinating that Cliff's use of a logbook, external monitoring systems, a pager, a very early form of a "canary token," and a few other technical ideas are still in use today. (OK, maybe not the pager exactly but lots of IT people get text alerts on their phones!)
His inability to get any help from the 3 Letter Federal Agencies was not surprising. It took 9/11 to fix some of those communication problems (but not all from what I understand).
Anyways, …
I've had this book recommended to me personally as well on several lists of "cybersecurity books everyone should read" so I finally got around to reading it.
The story, while slightly repetitive, unfolds in a first person, linear style. I found the book easy to read, and while the cybersecurity ideas presented seems commonplace today, I think they were probably groundbreaking when the book came out.
I found it fascinating that Cliff's use of a logbook, external monitoring systems, a pager, a very early form of a "canary token," and a few other technical ideas are still in use today. (OK, maybe not the pager exactly but lots of IT people get text alerts on their phones!)
His inability to get any help from the 3 Letter Federal Agencies was not surprising. It took 9/11 to fix some of those communication problems (but not all from what I understand).
Anyways, this is a fascinating look at how one person laid the path for the future of cybersecurity incident response. While the technical details probably aren't relevant in this day and age (1200 baud modems, anyone?) this book should be required reading for anyone that has a personal or professional interest in cybersecurity.
