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  • Countdown to Zero Day

  • Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
  • Written by: Kim Zetter
  • Narrated by: Joe Ochman
  • Length: 13 hrs
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (53 ratings)

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Countdown to Zero Day

Written by: Kim Zetter
Narrated by: Joe Ochman
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Publisher's Summary

A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb.

“Immensely enjoyable . . . Zetter turns a complicated and technical cyber story into an engrossing whodunit.”—The Washington Post

The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm and wreak actual, physical destruction—in this case, on an Iranian nuclear facility.

In these chapters, journalist Kim Zetter tells the whole story behind the world’s first cyberweapon, covering its genesis in the corridors of the White House and its effects in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a top secret sabotage campaign years in the making.

But Countdown to Zero Day also ranges beyond Stuxnet itself, exploring the history of cyberwarfare and its future, showing us what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by a Stuxnet-style attack, and ultimately, providing a portrait of a world at the edge of a new kind of war.

©2014 Kim Zetter (P)2014 Random House Audio

What the critics say

“An authoritative account of Stuxnet’s spread and discovery . . . [delivers] a sobering message about the vulnerability of the systems—train lines, water-treatment plants, electricity grids—that make modern life possible.”Economist

“Exhaustively researched . . . Zetter gives a full account of this ‘hack of the century,’ as the operation has been called, [but] the book goes well beyond its ostensible subject to offer a hair-raising introduction to the age of cyber warfare.”The Wall Street Journal

“Part detective story, part scary-brilliant treatise on the future of warfare . . . an ambitious, comprehensive, and engrossing book that should be required reading for anyone who cares about the threats that America—and the world—are sure to be facing over the coming years.”—Kevin Mitnick, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost in the Wires and The Art of Intrusion

What listeners say about Countdown to Zero Day

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  • AV
  • 2021-11-01

Pronunciation of names

I struggled with the fact that names, for people and places, that are easily searchable online were butchered the way they were.

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  • Overall
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  • Jon
  • 2023-12-07

Very interesting, technical but easy enough to understand.

Very detailed with lots of good technical information. It's broken down into easy to understand explainations so you don't have to be a tech wizard to enjoy the book.

The narration is also very good, with everything said clearly, without any weird pronunciations or weird quirks.

The only negative thing I can say about this book is that it's filled with cringe analogies that really don't need to be there, in an effort to (I assume) make some things more understandable or relatable to the average person, but a lot of the time they just sound overly dramatic or out of place.

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