I'm pleased to announce that my book "Making Sense of Cybersecurity" has been published by Manning.

In 1984, when I was only 10 years old, I unintentionally and indirectly contributed to the UK creating the Computer Misuse Act – a groundbreaking law that aimed to safeguard online assets from hackers.

No biggie!

Back in the 80s, the emergence of microcomputers led the UK government to work with the BBC to create a Computer Literacy Project. One of the results of this was the revolutionary BBC Micro, and it was a life-changing moment when my dad brought one home.
Within 6 months of fiddling with the device, I learned not only how to program it, but also how to access British Telecom’s Prestel system, essentially exposing its vulnerabilities.
Back then, hacking into a system wasn’t considered a crime, at least not on paper. The Internet, although in its infancy, was beginning to reveal itself as a playground for criminals to master a new way of stealing, before dressing up in black overalls and putting on a hoodie.
The reality at the time was: Everyone would get hacked; it was just a matter of when. Something that still rings true today.

These days, computers, smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices have become so easy to use and commonplace, that they have become utilities – like telephones on everyone’s desks in an office. This very pervasiveness has also led to people taking these devices for granted, and the increasing complexity behind the nice user interfaces has made understanding how they work more difficult.
Despite the huge advances in technology – both in hardware and software – we still face the same problems with security that we did in the 80s when personal computers were first emerging. Cybersecurity professionals are still defending against the same mistakes and attacks that we discovered 40 years ago.

Over my career, I’ve consistently found that because cybersecurity is such a complex topic, people found it difficult to understand it. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt – along with a hefty dose of jargon – have been used to push cybersecurity technologies. Fed up with seeing people being misled, I wrote “Making Sense of Cybersecurity”, a fun introduction to the most common attacks, and their defenses. It explains the basics of this complex field to everyone – from executives to developers and non-technologists – enabling them to build relevant, proportional, and sustainable defenses.
I want to bring readers from ‘interested’ to ‘empowered’, to make better decisions, and be more secure. The more people we can help to understand and mitigate the most common risks, then the more secure we all become.

The book is split into two parts, with an initial introduction to cyber security strategy. Part 1 explores how attackers think, teaching you their most common attacks, and looking into areas like SMS authentication and physical security, that are often ignored. In Part 2 we look at things from the other side: teaching you how to measure and manage risk, build defenses, and deal with attacks.

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