Book review: Sandworm

Hello everyone,

On February 2, 2023, I posted to this blog my next read, Sandworm. I recently finished it, and boy was it good.

The book is 42 chapters and an epilogue. You can check out the resources and even the bibliogrophy if you wish.

The book defines several different terms like zero-day, rootkit and others.

The main portion of the book talks about the Russia/Ukraine conflict and what Russia supposedly has done to Ukraine. This was interesting, as some of the things talked about like Mimikatz, Olympic Destroyer and others were big topics on programs like Security Now.

It talked about the multiple blackouts that Ukraine had in power and other Internet troubles through the years. This was especially interesting because some of the current war they’re dealing with had some of the same things. The difference between now and then was the devistation and rippling effect of the Internet attacks back then.

While Ukraine has had more problems in this war they’re fighting now, it seems as though it wasn’t so bad as it could’ve been, unless Russia is still developing something we don’t know about yet.

Andy Greenberg’s writing and explanations of what took place was quite fascinating. We learn that Sandworm was actually developed in 2009, and in conjunction with Mimikatz and other tools, became a powerhouse of an attack vector that could in theory could be used anywhere.

The book itself is roughly 345 pages, and I did skip the references but did read the bibliogrophy. Some of the books mentioned I’ve read including Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon.

I’m wondering who will pick up this story as the publication of this book was in 2019. I recently spotted an article about Sandworm through Cyberscoop I believe and they’re still out there.

If you’re new to cybersecurity, this might be the book you want to start with. It isn’t too technical and I believe it describes what’s going on quite well.

You can find Sandworm through a link I’ll provide on the blog, or through Bookshare if you have an account with them. Its also available through Apple Books if you wish to use that service as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was available at the library and you can borrow it through there.

The price of the print digital copy is $14.95 with the audio version $16.95 through Kindle or other services.

I honestly hope that you’ll check this book out, it does explain a lot of what’s going on with the cyber warfare we’re hearing about either in the tech press or even in your local news.

Let me know what you think, did you read the book? What did you think of it? Let’s discuss the book right here!

Book

• Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg

Other Books

Andy has several other books out. One was a 2018 write up, the other is a 2022 write up. Those are:

• Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency 2022
• This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers 2018

Final Thoughts

I hope you will check out these books. They’re definitely an educational read and can start you on the path of learning more about the ways they fight these things mentioned in this or any of the other books and you’ll start to understand why it is a big deal when something happens that we may not much care about.

Thanks for reading, have fun!