Peer to Peer Magazine

book review "I sat with colleagues discussing how we would plan an espionage attack against an American business. And then a lightbulb went on: the law firms! Of course: A company's outside intellectual property lawyers have its technical secrets, and their corporate law colleagues are privy to strategic business plans. … In some firms the rainmakers have nixed even simple steps, like requiring a password on mobile devices that connect with the firm's servers. They couldn't be bothered. Privileged with secrets, lawyers are the perfect targets. I cannot disclose what I know because it's classified, but I can disclose that I know that my surmise was soon justified. U.S. law firms have been penetrated both here and abroad." This excerpt from Joel Brenner's book "America the Vulnerable" gives great insight into the very real, global security problems and threats that law firms are facing. And Brenner knows what he's talking about: He is a partner at Cooley LLP (an ILTA member firm and one of the largest 100 law firms in the U.S.), a former inspector general of the National Security Agency (NSA), and he was the head of U.S. counterintelligence for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The timely topic of this book caught the eye of ILTA's Server Operations and Security Peer Group. Two members, Mark Brophy and Carlos Rodriguez, sat down to discuss what they learned from their readings — and what all ILTA members should be aware of. Please describe this book and why it should be shared with ILTA members. Carlos: This book explores both cybercrime and cyberwarfare, with more emphasis on the latter. The author gives readers 94 Peer to Peer a primer on cybersecurity and how some attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), take place. However, because of Brenner's insight into the U.S. national intelligence system, the book focuses on what state-sponsored cyberthreats (i.e., threats supported by a particular country) pose to the international community, especially the U.S. Mark: The book is also written for the nontechnical reader. People who are not working with technology security regularly, such as attorneys, can understand the important messages that Brenner conveys. What is Brenner's message to readers? Mark: "America the Vulnerable" showed me that the IT security paradigm has changed, and not in a good way. For instance, those in charge of IT security used to think that external hacking or threats were something like the Mark Zuckerberg depiction in

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