Kingdom Of Lies, Unnerving Adventures In The World Of Cybercrime by Kate Fazzini

This book is supposed to be an exposé on what exactly takes place on the keyboards of the world. As the globe is connected, even to remote corners, via the internet (scary how quickly that happened), the potential for crimes committed via that medium is huge. Credit card scams, blackmail, political revelations, stock scams, insider trading, it’s all happening on-line. Sadly, Kingdom of lies does not bring us fully into what is a fascinating network of infiltrations and manipulations.

The structure of this book is poor. It bounces from one real person (identity not revealed) to another as we get a peek at what makes hackers tick and how they conduct their nefarious business. There is the Romanian teenager who eventually marries a German hacker running a malware scam from a village in Romania. We learn about the way in which she was drafted into the organisation that was to make millions, get her a husband, a baby and eventually a life running from her domineering spouse.

There is the Irish convert to Islam who wants to help out ISIS. We hear little about him other than how deluded he is. There is the former Chinese soldier who worked as an official government hacker before moving into the private sector. His technique for acquiring data was simple and ingenious but ultimately didn’t make him rich.

There is the army of Iranian hackers who almost destroyed a US bank and the bank employees who tried to stop them. This thread is the main one, as it delves into the personnel dynamic within the bank and the cyber-security team there. It introduces us to the Islamic fundamentalist hackers apparently determined to crash the bank whilst harvesting customer data. Rebel Voice wonders just how much was inspired by religion and how much by greed for profit?

We meet time and time again with Victor, the Russian hacker who claims not to be  a hacker, but who is able to get into the remote operation of cars to control them. There’s Dieter, yet another German who has hacked the computer of his associate (the one married to the Romanian girl) to try to discover what he’s up to. Dieter is a cyber-journalist and wants a big scoop, even if it takes his acquaintance down.

There are others touched upon through this story; recruiters for ISIS, CIA operatives, A-list Israeli hackers and a general melange of people with a life online. But, as you get into the story, you are given a sense that the many threads are all moving towards one and other, guiding you to a stunning conclusion when the central characters come together in a final cataclysmic battle. No. It doesn’t happen.

Kingdom of Lies is a montage of stories, some of which touch upon one another and most that don’t. It is misleading so perhaps the title is apt, just not in the way the author intended. Kate Fazzini is listed as Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of Maryland. She has worked as a correspondent for cyber issues for the Wall Street Journal. You would be forgiven for thinking that she would be full of intricate details and anecdotes that would glue you to her pages. You would be mistaken, however. This book was a let down although it did provide some insight into just how precarious your private information really is out there.

The conclusion that Rebel Voice took from this book is that there is no such thing as a secure online transaction. Some transactions are just more vulnerable than others but, ultimately, the cyber-world is a dangerous one even for those who know the ins and outs of it. For the rest of us poor devils, we don’t stand a chance. Digging a hole in the back garden is looking ever more attractive as a means of keeping your savings safe, and it has the added bonus of keeping the Inland Revenue Service in the dark (where sadly they continue to grow like the fungii they are).

Sult scale rating: 4.5 out of 10. This is a poor effort to relate a fascinating subject. Everyone in the western world, and most people globally, are now affected by what takes place online. Spam, scams, blackmail, theft, data harvesting, manipulation and control are daily occurrences with hackers looking for new ways to buck the system. Back and forth it goes. Cybersecurity versus hackers. They move, then they move. Round and round they go, with our money and information. Rebel Voice has serious concerns that humanity is always going to be playing catch-up with cyber-technology. It seems to be flying way ahead of us and we’re struggling to keep up. Will there ever be a balance of the real and the virtual, nature and technology, business and fun. Or will it all thump on, as it’s doing, until the internet and everything on it consumes us all?

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