All Categories
Product Description What can you learn from a CIA spy who spent his career artfully manipulating regular people to steal high-value secrets? Plenty! In this explosive book, former intelligence officer Peter Warmka unveils detailed methodologies that he and other threat actors use to breach the security of their targets, whether they’re high-profile individuals or entire organizations. His illustrative examples reveal: the motivations and objectives behind attempted breaches by foreign intelligence services, criminal groups, industrial competitors, activists and other threat actors how social media and carefully crafted insights into a victim’s motivations and vulnerabilities are leveraged during phishing, smishing, vishing and other advanced social engineering operations to obtain even closely held information the psychology behind why humans are so susceptible to social engineering, and how influence techniques are used to circumvent established security protocols how spies and other social engineers use elicitation to legally procure protected information from victims who often have no idea they’re being used Whether you want to learn more about the intricate methods threat actors can use to access sensitive information on your organization or want to be able to spot the ways a social engineer might manipulate you in person or online, this book will change the way you think about that innocuous email in your inbox or that unusual interaction with an eager stranger. Following his CIA career, Peter founded the Counterintelligence Institute in order to transform the way individuals and their organizations assess the control they have over their own security. The insights detailed in this book have led clients to prioritize proactive measures in breach prevention over the more costly reactive measures following a preventable breach. Review "A must-read for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their organizations from falling prey to manipulation tactics used by the world's savviest social engineers." -- Michael Hayden, retired four-star general USAF, former Director of NSA and Director of the CIA, Principal at the Chertoff Group, author of New York Times bestseller Playing to the Edge and The Assault on Intelligence . "Peter Warmka had an amazing career in the CIA and continues to use his expertise in the private sector. His new book Confessions of a CIA Spy: The Art of Human Hacking is the best guide I have seen on the new battleground of espionage. Cyber, social engineering, and human hacking have become the name of the game. You owe it to yourself to read this book to protect yourself and your organization from highly sophisticated and devious attacks." --James Olson, former Chief of CIA Counterintelligence and the author of To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence "You get what you negotiate' is a popular business phrase. However, in today's Wild West of cyber insecurity, a retired CIA officer offers sobering counter counsel, what you have, they are coming after. From decades of recruiting spies, Peter Warmka knows how to steal secrets, or more accurately, how to persuade people to give up their secrets. Confessions of a CIA Spy describes successful collection techniques, tricks if you will, that are used to steal far more than government classified material. These are subtle, crafted maneuvers which, to the uninitiated, appear like normal behavior, but are the very tools used to compromise your company's data and deplete your account. Readable, eye-opening and based on a deep knowledge of espionage tradecraft, Confessions of a CIA Spy reveals the playbook of those who prey on the unsuspecting. Warmka's work arms the reader with an awareness of the attacker's game plan. As a result, you win, they lose." -- Robert Wallace, Author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to al-Qeeda and executive producer of the Netflix series, SPYCRAFT.