(BOOK REVIEW) The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics

BOOK REVIEW: The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics
Author: Ben Buchanan

Reviewed by Peter Tran for The Cipher Brief

In the midst of the coronavirus global pandemic, I can’t help but draw parallels to the cyber
world in that the enemy is invisible, adaptable, pervasive and capable of shaping multiple
dimensions of domestic and international geopolitics. This is exactly what Ben Buchanan
accomplishes in somewhat of a Hitchcock-esque “Rear Window” style of putting the reader in a
front row seat to watch exactly how select nation states use their own home brew cyber hacking
techniques and tactics or what Buchanan calls “Statecraft” to disrupt, manipulate and arguably
change the course of our daily lives.

Although the book takes a scholarly approach in its research and fact finding, I did get a strong
sense this was more than just another cyber conspiracy story rooted in age-old cloak and dagger
politics. Buchanan takes the reader through an extremely relevant, well-articulated and qualified
view of the new realities of where the real battlefield exists in the next frontier of information
technology platforms and how those platforms extend geopolitically to everyday people from
Madison Avenue to Main Street.

What I found intriguing was Buchanan’s approach to espionage and disruption attacks within the
context of hacking with an original view of how the private sector big tech firms such as AT&T,
Google, Facebook, Apple and others hold a considerable burden on their shoulders within the
geopolitical foreign counter intelligence tug-of-war. This makes the reader really think about
whether the enemy of your enemy is really your friend. This made me question who is really
spying on what the book calls, “the backbone of the internet.”

The author then takes a sharp right-hand turn to provide a chilling view of what feels like state
sponsored cyber “street justice” reminiscent of hit men and snipers but with a twist, as the book
brings the reader through a vast and complex world called the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)
with shadowy state-sponsored hacker subgroups with names such as BYZANTINE HADES,
BIZANTINE CANDOR and hacking the hackers through tailored access operations (TAO)
somewhere in and around Ft. Meade, Maryland. For me, this was an up close and personal replay
back to my days with the former U.S. Department of Defense Joint Task Force Global Network
Operations now the U.S. Cyber Command based out of the NSA. Buchanan does a brilliant job
making this transition to taking the reader as close to the front lines as possible short of being
right on the hacker’s lap and keyboard somewhere in mainland China or North Korea.
In an impacting moment in the book, Buchanan quotes former Director of the NSA, General
Keith Alexander, saying “Iran was an unpredictable adversary because it did not calculate in its
hacking operations but rather ‘will act emotionally’.” This took me even closer to feeling the
adversary’s moves as it brought in the human element rather than treating it like zeros and ones
floating out in cyber space.

The Hacker and The State is direct, no nonsense and strikes to the core of the state-sponsored
hacker’s industrial complex while balancing thought provoking sub themes and challenging
current and future geopolitical integrity, intent and global data privacy expectations. Buchanan
leaves the reader well anchored in qualified facts, true to life use cases and animated experiences
with thought provoking glimpses for the reader to formulate his/her own correlations and
conclusions.

This book earns a prestigious 3.5 out of four trench coats.

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