The Perfect Weapon

War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

By: David E. Sanger

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

SOON TO BE AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times)

The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the United States and its allies. And if Obama would begin his presidency by helping to launch the new era of cyberwar, he would end it struggling unsuccessfully to defend against Russia’s broad attack on the 2016 US election.

Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution, where everyone is a target.

“Timely and bracing . . . With the deep knowledge and bright clarity that have long characterized his work, Sanger recounts the cunning and dangerous development of cyberspace into the global battlefield of the 21st century.” —Washington Post

Informative and gripping

I am fan of David Sanger’s work. His is thorough and has a very engaging writing style. This book is an excellent example of that. The topic is serious and at times very worrisome and the book reads like a gripping thriller, except that it’s all real. It is going to take very enlightened leadership worldwide to come up with a framework similar to nuclear arms control to limit the use of cyber technologies for only enriching our lives. We aren’t there yet but let’s hope that we do.

Highly recommended.

Riveting!

Riveting, frightening, scary, and all too real. Excellent narrator who leads the listener through the evidence for the ongoing hacking occurring right now.

The perfect book!

Brilliant book. Highly compressible clear exposition perfectly delivered!!! Recommended for lay readers such as I.

Lucid, eloquent, sourced

What more can I say? This is critical and balanced reportage. It's so well written (prosified, if you will) and read with such gravity and care. Love Robertson Dean's voice. He the James Earl Jones of audible. And Sanger is James Earl Jones of the NYT.

great content and lessons to be learned

Great stories, and if you geek out on hacking, the stories just keep coming. The narrator did a fine job but there was something in the sound mixing where I really had to crank up the volume to hear properly.