Listening In - A MUST Read Cybersecurity Book by Susan Landau

If I had to summarize why I loved working at Sun Microsystems so much, it would be the brilliant people I was able to meet, work with and we became friends.

Susan Landau was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun.  She is an Association for Computing Machinery Fellow, a Cybersecurity Hall of Fame inductee and an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.  Susan is a globally recognized expert in security.

I had the pleasure of meeting Susan while we were both at Sun.  We had a number of very interesting conversations while we were at Sun, as well a number of conversations since Sun was purchased.  The conversations we had and have were always enlightening, interesting and very educational for me.

Susan wrote a book titled Listening In - Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age and sent me a signed copy.  This is an excellent book and a must read whether or not you are a geek like me, a policy maker, someone who has an interest in security or just your average citizen.  Susan's book is extremely well written and well researched.  She is able to educate the reader on Cybersecurity in a clear and compelling fashion.  You do not need a mathematical, computer science or technical background to learn a ton from this book. My hope would be Susan's book would be embraced by policy makers and citizens around the globe as she does an excellent job explaining the proper role and balance of government in providing national security and law enforcement through numerous real life examples.

When I first got the book and looked at the back cover and saw recommendations from Vint Cert, Jonathan Ziltrain, Matt Olsen (former Director NCTC) and Juliette Kayyem (former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security), I knew this just moved to the top of my reading queue!

Susan did reach out to me to discuss security in the area of manufacturing.  We had a few phone conversations and email discussions.  I was thrilled to see that Susan referenced an article I wrote for Advanced Manufacturing titled, With Machine Monitoring, Instant ROI is Possible and my book, MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know.  Thanks Susan!

Bottom line is that this a GREAT book and a MUST read for everyone.