Cyber Crime Fighters: Tales from the Trenches

If you think you're savvy about cyber crime, this book will make you even more cautious.

Title: Cyber Crime Fighters: Tales from the Trenches
Author: Felicia Donovan & Kristyn Bernier
Publisher: Que, 2008
Price: £13.99
Pages: 336
ISBN: 978-0789739223
Reviewed by: Sue Gee

As an avid watcher of forensic science TV series I expected to enjoy reading this book, written by two "real life" cyber crime experts, but I thought it would mainly confirm what I already knew. In the event I found it much more unsettling than I expected.

Like most of you, I was already aware of the concept of identify theft and of the perils of phishing, pharming, spam and scams, and all of these were covered in a thought-provoking manner.

However, there were other potential dangers such as cyber stalking that I'd blissfully ignored. Moreover the book gave me a very useful reminder in the fact that if I was already a victim of cyber crime the chances were that I wouldn't even know about it.

From a corporate perspective, one drawback of the book is that a high proportion of the content is devoted to sex crimes and to personal victimisation with some horrific examples to reinforce the message. However, if you have naive family members who hand out personal information online, this may be the key to getting them to be more cautious.

The focus isn't limited to computers but covers mobile phones and other devices, including GPS and keystroke loggers, that criminals use to track an individual's whereabouts and daily routine, read private emails, and successfully steal other people's identities.

The book does contain good advice about how you can protect yourself but its main role is in raising awareness of the multitude of threats. It's no good dismissing the dangers as being ones that are restricted to the USA; it's true that the case histories quoted are American, which is what you would expect given that the authors were both based in the New England police department, but just as the Internet is global so is the cyber crime.

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