Michigan Journalist, Writer, IT Security Expert Collaborate For Cybercrime Novella
GRAND RAPIDS - A Michigan journalist, a writer and an IT security expert have written a novel about cybercrime based on real vulnerabilities in the way the Internet is constructed.
The novella, called Cyber Styletto, comes from the minds of Gian DeTorre, the pen name of an award-winning fiction writer and literary critic, and Grand Rapids tech journalist Mike Brennan, whose MITechNews.com has been on the Web since 1997.
The cybersecurity risks and technologies featured in the book were verified by security expert Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at the tech security firm IT Harvest. Stiennon has been in the security field since 1995 and is the author of "Surviving Cyberwar."
The book takes actual cybersecurity attacks using sophisticated malware, think the recent attack on Iran's nuclear programs with the malware named Stuxnet, as well as social engineering techniques to imagine what an attack might be like in the United States.
"Cyber Styletto is a new genre in literature, bringing the modern, secretive world of cyber espionage together with a good, old-fashioned thriller," DeTorre said. "I hope our audience has as much fun reading it as we had producing it."
Said Stiennon: "Sometimes it is difficult to explain the complexity of advanced cyber attacks. Cyber Styletto succeeds in highlighting the potential for abuse of our networked world by bad actors; and it does so in an entertaining good read."
Added Brennan: "When I started working with Richard more than a year ago on what we thought would be a great science fiction tale, we had no idea that when we published it our fiction would turn to fact. Our plot and many of the characters are ripped from today's headlines. The novella morphed from a good story to a great read when Gian joined the team. We believe we have written a story every cyber security professional and government policy makers should read carefully."
The eBook sells for $2.99 and is available at www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=cyber+styletto. The paperback is available at http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=Cyber+Styletto. The authors plan an illustrated paperback version by late summer.
