The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

Computer and cyber warfare is a burgeoning mode of conflict that poses serious threats to the United States, Pulitzer-winning New York Times correspondent Sanger (Confront and Conceal) argues in this perhaps overly worried investigation. Sanger rehashes the notorious Russian hacks during the 2016 American election along with lesser-known digital assaults on the United States, including the installation of Russian malware on systems that control—and could shut down—U. S. power and communications grids; Russian hacks of White House, Pentagon, and NSA networks, the last putting secret American hacking tools in the hands of miscreants; and Iranian and Chinese hacks of banks, corporations, and government databases. America, he notes, is hardly innocent, having engineered the Stuxnet attack on Iranian nuclear centrifuges and a possible sabotage of North Korean missiles. He further warns that federal responses to these attacks have been feckless and shrouded in a secrecy that makes prevention harder. Sanger gives a lucid account of national programs for digital espionage and warfare, but it’s not always clear that the various technologies described hold much danger; for example, he doesn’t make a strong case that Russian spoofing of social media accounts really undermines American democracy. Readers could use a more thorough exploration of the limitations of supposedly perfect digital weapons. (June)