Review
"Big Breaches is a 'must have' not only for CISOs and Cyber Security professionals, but it is a valuable reference for technology & business leaders seeking to proactively protect their businesses from cyber attacks."
-- Mazen Rawashdeh, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, eBay
"This book uses previous failures in computer security to teach useful lessons in preventing them in the future."
-- Andy Steingruebl, Chief Security Officer at Pinterest
"Neil and Moudy write in their last chapter how important the mission of cybersecurity is. What makes this profession different than most other jobs is the opportunity to have a sense of purpose and mission. Professionals in this business are in their own small way a vital piece of a larger ecosystem but an essential part of the higher calling toward the protection of their respective nation's critical infrastructures, their national and economic security, privacy and inherent rights as free citizens in a free democracy. This sense of purpose matters, it all matters."
-- Robert Rodriguez, Chairman & Founder, SINET
"Taking a systemic, comprehensive, and whole-of-enterprise view of security breaches is not only good practice, it should become the standard by which security programs are evaluated. Focusing on the myriad but categorized root causes of security breaches is a critical step in establishing a better understanding of those 'reasonable' security practices and governance activities that effectively mitigate the likelihood of a data breach as well as minimizing their impacts to organizations and consumers alike. Capturing pragmatic, practitioner-driven insights makes this book valuable to members of the board, business executives, as well as technology leaders such as CISOs, CIOs, and CTOs."
--Matt Stamper, co-author of the CISO Desk Reference Guide (Volumes 1 & 2), former research director for Gartner (covering incident response), and CISO & Executive Advisor at EVOTEK.
"A MUST READ...With breaches continuing to increase and the cyber war being the new battle front the world needs to wake up. They need to understand that nation states are not just a bunch of "bad actors'' sitting around in their bunny slippers having fun". They are highly trained operatives no different than intelligence officers looking to advance their countries military and intelligence capabilities. This book draws out the activities that occurred and describes business objectives organizations can take to protect themselves. Moudy Elbayadi provides a systematic approach to each of these breaches and brings together the risks and threats we all are facing. Actors are going after everything and anything - pharmaceutical drug IP, military, technology, agriculture, and now anything that is part of a major supply chain. Do you think it will stop...don't fool yourselves it has just begun? This gripping accounts of the biggest breaches over the past 7 years. This is a must read and provides detailed accounts that we can all learn from in order to protect our organizations, families, and country."
-- Macy Dennis, Chief Security Officer, EVOTEK
"I'm moving into a security role and have found this book extremely useful. By breaking major security breaches and data leaks down into the core reasons - e.g. phishing, poor patch management - the book is able to give a clear understanding of why these happened with actionable advice to strengthen your own defenses for future risks. Many major leaks (e.g. Equifax) were completely preventable if proper procedures were followed; buy-in needs to come from the top and security needs to be a core focus of any business dealing with sensitive data. Highly recommended, written in a clear and understandable format this is just as useful for non-specialists."
-- NetGalley Review
"Cyber security is a huge topic today. This book explains in easy language what are the typical breaches, measures to be in place and shares different cases. I liked the book for people like me, who want to make oneself familiar with the topic."
-- NetGalley Review
From the Back Cover
The cybersecurity industry has seen an investment of over $45 billion in the past 15 years. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in the field remain unfilled amid breach after breach, and the problem has come to a head. It is time for everyone―not just techies―to become informed and empowered on the subject of cybersecurity.
In engaging and exciting fashion, Big Breaches covers some of the largest security breaches and the technical topics behind them such as phishing, malware, third-party compromise, software vulnerabilities, unencrypted data, and more. Cybersecurity affects daily life for all of us, and the area has never been more accessible than with this book.
You will obtain a confident grasp on industry insider knowledge such as effective prevention and detection countermeasures, the meta-level causes of breaches, the seven crucial habits for optimal security in your organization, and much more. These valuable lessons are applied to real-world cases, helping you deduce just how high-profile mega-breaches at Target, JPMorgan Chase, Equifax, Marriott, and more were able to occur.
Whether you are seeking to implement a stronger foundation of cybersecurity within your organization or you are an individual who wants to learn the basics, Big Breaches ensures that everybody comes away with essential knowledge to move forward successfully. Arm yourself with this book’s expert insights and be prepared for the future of cybersecurity.
About the Author
Dr. Neil Daswani is Co-Director of the Stanford Advanced Security Certification program, and is President of Daswani Enterprises, his security consulting and training firm. He has served in a variety of research, development, teaching, and executive management roles at Symantec, LifeLock, Twitter, Dasient, Google, Stanford University, NTT DoCoMo USA Labs, Yodlee, and Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore). At Symantec, he was Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Consumer Business Unit, and at LifeLock he was the company-wide CISO. Neil has served as Executive-in-Residence at Trinity Ventures (funders of Auth0, New Relic, Aruba, Starbucks, and Bulletproof). He is an investor in and advisor to several cybersecurity startup companies and venture capital funds, including Benhamou Global Ventures, Firebolt, Gravity Ranch Ventures, Security Leadership Capital, and Swift VC. Neil is also co-author of Foundations of Security: What Every Programmer Needs to Know(Apress).
Neil's DNA is deeply rooted in security research and development. He has dozens of technical articles published in top academic and industry conferences (ACM, IEEE, USENIX, RSA, BlackHat, and OWASP), and he has been granted over a dozen US patents. He frequently gives talks at industry and academic conferences, and has been quoted by publications such as The New York Times, USA Today, and CSO Magazine. He earned PhD and MS degrees in computer science at Stanford University, and he holds a BS in computer science with honors with distinction from Columbia University.
Dr. Moudy Elbayadi has more than 20 years of experience and has worked with a number of high-growth companies and across a variety of industries, including mobile and SaaS consumer services, and security and financial services. Having held C-level positions for leading solution providers, Dr. Elbayadi has a unique 360-degree view of consumer and enterprise SaaS businesses. Hehas a consistent track record of defining technology and product strategies that accelerate growth.
As CTO of Shutterfly, Dr. Elbayadi oversees all technology functions including product development, cybersecurity, DevOps, and machine learning/AI R&D functions. In this capacity he is leading the technology platform transformation. Prior to Shutterfly, Dr. Elbayadi held the position of SVP, Product & Technology for Brain Corp, a San Diego-based AI company creating transformative core technology for the robotics industry.
As advisor, Dr. Elbayadi has been engaged by CEOs and senior executives of companies ranging from $10M to $2B in revenues. Representative engagements include public cloud strategy, platform integration and M&A strategy. He has advised numerous VC firms on technology and prospective investments.
Dr. Elbayadi earned a doctorate in leadership and change from Antioch University, a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Chapman University, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Redlands.
