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  • Published: 6 January 2021
  • ISBN: 9780525564638
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $44.99

Sandworm

A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers



In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a mysterious series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes grew ever more brazen, paralyzing some of the world's largest businesses--from drug manufacturers to software developers to shipping companies. ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. Hospitals went dark. The malware known as NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billion dollars in damage--the largest, most devastating cyberattack the world had ever seen.
     The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in history: a group known as Sandworm, working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency and targeting government and the private sector, military and civilians alike.
     A chilling, globe-spanning detective story, Sandworm considers the danger this force poses to our national security and stability. As the Kremlin's role in foreign government manipulation comes into greater focus, Sandworm exposes the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield. The line between digital and physical conflict, between wartime and peacetime, has begun to blur--with world-shaking implications.

"With the nuance of a reporter and the pace of a thriller writer, Andy Greenberg gives us a glimpse of the cyberwars of the future while at the same time placing his story in the long arc of Russian and Ukrainian history." —Anne Applebaum, bestselling author of Twilight of Democracy

The true story of the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in history and the desperate hunt to identify and track the elite Russian agents behind it: "[A] chilling account of a Kremlin-led cyberattack, a new front in global conflict" (Financial Times).

In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a mysterious series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes grew ever more brazen. They culminated in the summer of 2017, when the malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, penetrating, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest businesses—from drug manufacturers to software developers to shipping companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. Hospitals went dark. NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billion dollars in damage—the largest, most destructive cyberattack the world had ever seen.

The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in history: a group known as Sandworm. Working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency, they represent a persistent, highly skilled force, one whose talents are matched by their willingness to launch broad, unrestrained attacks on the most critical infrastructure of their adversaries. They target government and private sector, military and civilians alike.

A chilling, globe-spanning detective story, Sandworm considers the danger this force poses to our national security and stability. As the Kremlin's role in foreign government manipulation comes into greater focus, Sandworm exposes the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield. It reveals how the lines between digital and physical conflict, between wartime and peacetime, have begun to blur—with world-shaking implications.

  • Published: 6 January 2021
  • ISBN: 9780525564638
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $44.99

About the author

Andy Greenberg

Andy Greenberg has covered cyber security and privacy for Forbes since 2007. Based in New York, Greenberg's reporting has taken him from an autonomous car race in the California desert to Beijing, where he first cut his teeth as a freelance journalist in 2004. Most recently, Greenberg's travels have taken him to Iceland and London, where he produced the world's first cover story on WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.

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Praise for Sandworm

"An important front-line view of the changing cyberthreats that are shaping our world, their creators and the professionals who try to protect us." --Nature
"Sandworm offers both a ripping narrative of a hack that broke the world and a worrying glimpse at cyberwar's rapidly evolving future." --Wired
"Essential.... A true-life techno-thriller." --Los Angeles Times

"An important front-line view of the changing cyberthreats that are shaping our world, their creators and the professionals who try to protect us." --Nature
"Sandworm offers both a ripping narrative of a hack that broke the world and a worrying glimpse at cyberwar's rapidly evolving future." --Wired
"Essential.... A true-life techno-thriller." --Los Angeles Times