Battlefield Cyber

How China and Russia Are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security

By: Michael G. McLaughlin, William Holstein

Narrated by: Steve Menasche

The United States is being bombarded with cyber-attacks. From the surge in ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to nation states compromising the software supply chain and corporate email servers, malicious cyber activities have reached an all-time high. Russia attracts the most attention, but China is vastly more sophisticated. They have a common interest in exploiting the openness of the Internet and social media—and our democracy—to erode confidence in our institutions and to exacerbate our societal rifts to prevent us from mounting an effective response. Halting this digital aggression will require Americans to undertake sweeping changes in how we educate, organize and protect ourselves and to ask difficult questions about how vulnerable our largest technology giants are.

If we are waiting for a “Cyber 9/11” or a “Cyber Pearl Harbor,” we are misunderstanding how our adversaries wage cyber warfare. This is a timely and critically important book. No other book has analyzed the threat of cyber warfare with the depth and knowledge brought to the subject by the authors.

It has now become a cliché to argue that a “whole of government” or “whole of society” response is necessary to respond to this crisis, but that concept has never been more important. It will take many years and billions of dollars to even begin to secure our IT systems and prevent the slow rot that is destroying America. Using language that the layman can understand, we wish to educate Americans about what has happened and inspire them to seek solutions.

©2023 Michael McLaughlin and William J. Holstein (P)2023 Rowman & Littlefield

Important Information

Thank you to Michael Mclaughlin and William Holstein for creating such a profound and insightful piece of literature.
I have read this book, along with other similar works, to try to comprehend why America has digitally lost its way, ie losing the war on the cyber frontier. I can honestly say I have a better grasp of what is happening and what went wrong after completing this book, as well as immediate steps for remediation and a better idea of how/what needs to be done to get America back to the forefront of cyber superiority.
This piece of literature needs to be a mandatory read for any individual interested in the American way of life. As well as any person interested in preserving our ideas, culture, and freedoms.
"The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed." - William Gibson
Thank You gentleman for your great work!

Great book, issues with playback

Awesome book. I highly recommend to anyone interested in the field of cyber. The narrator was good, but I found it to have been read far too slowly. I had to speed it up to 1.2 for it to feel a good pace for me. This would have been fine, but chapter 12 seemed to have technical issues. it was going so fast I had to slow it down to .75 for it to even be legible. the quality also seemed to be off as well, it was quieter and had a distortion sound in the background. After chapter 12, the quality returned to normal.

overall I would still recommend even with this issue. A great book!

good book, make narrator to 1.2 minimum

the story was interesting but I had to speed up the speaker, his voice was distracting

Alarming, scary and super good read

it is absolutely scary how the United States is ill prepared for the next Cyber attack from China or russia. it's also scary how willingly Tick Tock users give up their information as is referenced in a chapter all about. do you like cybersecurity, forensics, etc, this book is for you. really really good, scary how bad we are losing the Cyber War. must read

Timely, important and compelling

I was very impressed with how much the authors covered in this book which surveys the troubling contemporary landscape of cyber threats to the U.S., principally from China and Russia. As a professional in this area, I think my standards are high. I learned much from the book, benefited from refresh in other areas, and overall appreciated the “big picture” approach combined with many salient facts. Highly recommended!