Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War - Softcover

"The best available history of the U.S. government's secret use of both cyber spying, and efforts to use its computer prowess for more aggressive attacks. . . . Contains a number of fascinating, little-known stories about the National Security Agency and other secret units of the U.S. military and intelligence community. . . . An especially valuable addition to the debate."--John Sipher "Lawfare "

"Chilling . . . Kaplan is one of America's leading writers on national security, and his accounts of cyberattacks are gripping . . . assiduously researched."--Edward Lucas "The Times (London) "

"Peppered with many fascinating behind-the-scenes anecdotes . . . A readable and informative history."--P.W. Singer "The New York Times Book Review "

"Everyone has heard the term 'cyber warfare.' Very few people could explain exactly what it means and why it matters. Dark Territory solves that problem with an account that is both fascinating and authoritative. Fred Kaplan has put the people, the technologies, the dramatic turning points, and the strategic and economic stakes together in a way no author has done before."--James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic

"Kaplan dives into a topic which could end up being just as transformational to national security affairs as the nuclear age was. The book opens fast and builds from there, providing insights from research that even professionals directly involved in cyber operations will not have gleaned. . . . You will love this book."--Bob Gourley "CTOvision.com "

"Fascinating . . . To understand how deeply we have drifted into legally and politically uncharted waters, read Kaplan's new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War."--George F. Will "The Washington Post "

"Fred Kaplan's Dark Territory may become a classic reference for scholars and students seeking to understand the complicated people who ushered the United States into the cyber-conflict era and the tough decisions they made."--Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, Director, Center for Cyber Conflict, US Naval War College "Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute "

"Dark Territory is a remarkable piece of reporting. Fred Kaplan has illuminated not merely the profound vulnerabilities of our nation to cyber warfare, but why it has taken so long for our policy-makers to translate indifference into concern and concern into action. This is a vitally important book by a meticulous journalist."--Ted Koppel, author of Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath

"A fascinating account of the people and organizations leading the way towards a cyber war future."--Dorothy E. Denning, author of Information Warfare and Security, 1st Inductee, National Cyber Security Hall of Fame

"A compelling history of cyberwarfare."--Evan Osnos "The New Yorker "

“An important, disturbing, and gripping history” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), the never-before-told story of the computer scientists and the NSA, Pentagon, and White House policymakers who invent and employ cyber wars—where every country can be a major power player and every hacker a mass destroyer.

In June 1983, President Reagan watched the movie War Games, in which a teenager unwittingly hacks the Pentagon, and asked his top general if the scenario was plausible. The general said it was. This set in motion the first presidential directive on computer security.

From the 1991 Gulf War to conflicts in Haiti, Serbia, Syria, the former Soviet republics, Iraq, and Iran, where cyber warfare played a significant role, Dark Territory chronicles a little-known past that shines an unsettling light on our future. Fred Kaplan probes the inner corridors of the National Security Agency, the beyond-top-secret cyber units in the Pentagon, the “information warfare” squads of the military services, and the national security debates in the White House to reveal the details of the officers, policymakers, scientists, and spies who devised this new form of warfare and who have been planning—and (more often than people know) fighting—these wars for decades.

“An eye-opening history of our government’s efforts to effectively manage our national security in the face of the largely open global communications network established by the World Wide Web....Dark Territory is a page-turner [and] consistently surprising” (The New York Times).