From CIA to APT

Most introductory books on cyber security are either too technical for popular readers, or too casual for professional ones. This book, in contrast, is intended to reside somewhere in the middle. That is, while concepts are explained in a friendly manner for any educated adult, the book also necessarily includes network diagrams with the obligatory references to clouds, servers, and packets. But don’t let this scare you. Anyone with an ounce of determination can get through every page of this book, and will come out better informed, not only on cyber security, but also on computing, networking, and software. While it is true that college students will find the material particularly accessible, any adult with the desire to learn will find this book part of an exciting new journey. A great irony is that the dizzying assortment of articles, posts, and books currently available on cyber security makes it difficult to navigate the topic. Furthermore, with so much information coming from writers with questionable backgrounds in cyber security, separating the wheat from the chaff has become an almost impossible task for most readers, experienced or otherwise. This book is written specifically to address that problem. That is, we set out to create an accessible but technically accurate work on cyber security that would not insult the intelligence of our readers. We avoid the temptation to navigate away from the technical issues, choosing instead to steer toward the detailed concepts in the hopes that our readers will develop new understanding and insights. The material here provides a technical grounding that is commensurate with what you might receive in a college course on the topic. If you are an engineer, developer, or student, then you are certainly in the right place. On the other hand, if you work in management, executive leadership, or some other non-technical role, then this is exactly the technical grounding in cyber that you’ve been looking for. Anyone who has no