Book: Click Here to Kill Everybody by Bruce Schenier

"There is a fundamental difference between crashing your computer and losing your spreadsheet data, and crashing your pacemaker and losing your life," 

Blog Post

If you follow me across the web, you know I deeply distrust the Internet of Things. In making things easier for the non-techie, having simple or non existent security options makes them - and everyone else - more at risk for cybercrime.

I finished my Security+ book and read Click Here to Kill Everybody.





Schenier doesn't only break down how the IoT is the wild west of consumer products - There's a lot of regulations that fail to become law because, well, why bother changing it? Our data is continually at risk and companies do not care about it - and neither do we.

Target had a data breach - Do you still shop there? Will your next vacation be at Marriott after 500 million users had their data compromised? Probably. Did their systems fail predictably, safely? My bet is no.

You may say "The government implementing laws can't solve all the problems" and you would not be wrong.

Interconnected networks were built on shoddy protocols - Protocols that have updates and upgrades that are not widely implemented because it would cost too much to retool protocols that we have used for 30 years, and companies do not want to pay for that.

"We also tell them to not insert strange USB drives into their computers. Again, what else would you possibly do with a USB drive? We have to do better: we need systems that remain secure regardless of which links people click on, and regardless of which USB drives they stick into their computers."

Schenier pushes education on all levels, technologists and policy makers working closely together on what's feasible and what isn't, and encouraging people who want to enter the Cybersecurity field. With breaches everywhere you turn and a growing presence of the internet in our refrigerators, it should not be as hard as it is to break into the IT field.


It's a great, informative read with lots of footnotes and links to articles and resources that I will probably end up reading and writing about here, so please pay for the book and give it a read.