Zero Day Threat: the Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity is an interesting and eye-opening look at how banks and credit card companies make ID theft and fraud rather elementary. But with all that, this book must be read in the larger context of how today's society deals with, and is often oblivious to risk. When is comes to risk, American society tolerates tens of thousands of drunk-driving deaths, gives millions in federal tobacco subsidies, and is oblivious about near-epidemics such as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. With all that, it is doubtful that the myriad horror stories Zero Day Threat details will persuade Congress or the other players to do anything to curtail the problem with identity theft and internet fraud.
The internet and web have indeed revolutionized society, and there is hardly an industry that has not been positively affected by the net. On the down side, the net is the new conduit for criminals. For example, in the few years before the web became ubiquitous, U.S. and international law enforcement nearly had a noose around the child pornography industry and brought it to a near standstill. After the web, authorities have given up hope that child pornography can ever be contained.
Similarly, white-collar crime and fraud has been exacerbated by the net. Zero Day Threat details the various loopholes that criminals use to carry out their attacks and crimes. Each of the book's 18 chapters is divided into 3 section, exploiters -- which details how the crime lords and their teams carry out the crimes, enablers -- which details the history and current practices of credit card companies, banks, credit bureaus, and data brokers, and expediters -- which recounts how technology and technologies enable these crimes. I found that the breaking up of the chapters into such triplets is occasionally confusing, and you are left wondering what story you are in.
The book is based on the premise that the payment industry, namely the credit card companies, banks, credit bureaus and data brokers have created an infrastructure that is pliable, nearly endlessly extendable, but paper-thin when it comes to security. The system is built for ease of access, ease of granting credit, but without a robust security infrastructure or privacy controls.
Consider that the PCI Security Standards Council was not created until late 2004, and that will give you an idea how security is anathema to the industry. The outgrowth of PCI is the PCI Data Security Standard which is the first uniformly created set of comprehensive security requirements for enhancing payment account data security. While the industry debates the efficacy of PCI, attackers are busy at work running innumerable fraudulent schemes.
The authors paint an honest appraisal of the lack of security in the industry and have their facts in order, although an occasional hyperbole does creep in, for instance when the authors repeatedly state that the hackers in question went weeks without sleep. But a huge error is where they state in chapter 11 that PCI is controversial, with some merchants complaining that it is too costly to implement. There is nothing controversial about PCI, and the security controls it requires are sorely needed. While merchants express their discontent about security and its associated costs, attackers steal from underneath them. The quicker the merchants get that they needed security, the quicker the attacks will stop. But as the book shows, that will not happen anytime soon.
Part of the reason why identity theft will not go away anytime soon is similar to the problem in the air traffic control industry, as detailed in Terminal Chaos: Why U.S. Air Travel Is Broken and How to Fix It. There are too many players in the game, all of which focus on their own interests, and no one wants to take responsibility for the problem. The fact that the Social Security number (SSN) is still used as a key personal identifier, combined with the ease at which an individual 's SSN can be obtained and misused should be enough to give anyone pause.
The primary purpose of a SSN has been to track individuals for taxation purposes. But in the last decade, the SSN has become a de facto national identification number. When established in the 1930s, the Social Security Administration meant for the SSN to be used as a way to track a person's earnings for Social Security benefits. Despite its narrowly intended purpose, the SSN is now used more for non-Social Security purposes, than for the reason it was created. Today, SSNs are used for identity verification, and are the de facto identifier for the credit and financial services industry. With SSNs being aggregated by the millions, they are the fodder for the stories in the book.
Book such as Silent Spring, which helped launch the environmental movement, and The Jungle, which exposed the corruption of the American meatpacking industry, were watershed books that changed America. While Zero Day Threat is not in the same category as either of these books, it is highly unlikely that the level of outrage it will create will be much, nor the indignation significant. Because as bad as identity theft is, and as much grief as it causes, there are far too many politicians, powerful companies, lobbyists and more that are in the way of any change.
Nonetheless, Zero Day is a most interesting look at the many players that work together to facilitate the countless identity theft rings. The book is an absorbing look at the many international players and their enablers involved. While identity theft is not going away anytime soon, Zero Day Threat details the problem, and shows what you can do to ensure that you are not a victim.
