Breaking and Entering

The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called "Alien"

By: Jeremy N. Smith

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

This taut, true thriller takes a deep dive into a dark world that touches us all, as seen through the brilliant, breakneck career of an extraordinary hacker - a woman known only as Alien.

When she arrived at MIT in the 1990s, Alien wanted to study aerospace engineering, but she was soon drawn to the school’s venerable tradition of high-risk physical trespassing: the original “hacking”. Within a year, one of her hallmates was dead, two others were on trial, and two had been institutionalized. Alien’s adventures were only just beginning.

After a stint at the storied, secretive Los Alamos National Laboratory, Alien was recruited by a top cybersecurity firm where she deployed her large cache of virtual weapons - and the trespassing and social engineering talents she first developed while “hacking” at MIT. The company tested its clients’ security by every means possible - not just coding, but donning disguises and sneaking past guards and secretaries into the C-suite. (She once got into the vault of a major bank by posing as its auditor.)

Alien now runs her own boutique hacking outfit that caters to some of the world’s biggest and most vulnerable institutions - banks, retailers, government agencies. Her work combines devilish charm, old-school deception, and next generation spycraft.

In Breaking and Entering, cybersecurity finally gets the rich, character-driven, pacey treatment it deserves.

©2019 Jeremy N. Smith (P)2019 Recorded Books

A good read

A fun and accurate guide to the lives of the unstoppably curious nerds in our midst.

Great story of information security

Oh. My! This story appealed to me because my daughter went to MIT, and some of the “hacking” antics described by the main character, my daughter experienced and shared with me.
The bonus was the story of how information hacking developed, how sophisticated it is, who it affects and where it’s going.
If this doesn’t inspire you to get serious about password security and guarding all you personal data like your life depended on it, I don’t know what will.

read this book

book is written very well. story holds and keeps your intention. if you're interested in hackers or cybersecurity this is a great book for you.

An important lesson for all of us in a digital world

Not at all what I expected. A thoughtful “history” of the dangerous side of hacking from the perspective of those “white hats” hired to look for weaknesses in data security. It reveals how vulnerable we all are and how the black hats can take advantage of our gullibility and casualness to steal our data, identity and security. The story is told from the POV of a fascinating character, “Alien” an MIT student who got thrills in college breaking and entering into physical locations.
My first audio book and I really enjoyed it. Can’t wait to start my next audible book.

Very inspirational

The story of Elizabeth Tessman is fascinating and inspiring and the narrator did an excellent job in performing the hacker's tales. I highly recommend this book!