Summer is upon us, and it’s a good time to catch up on current and evolving developments in the world of cybersecurity. Below is a curated mix of books, articles, blogs, and podcasts to keep you informed—whether you’re traveling, relaxing, or just stepping back from the daily grind.
Drawing from recommendations from TechCrunch and NordVPN, these books explore a variety of topics, including cyberwarfare, hacking culture, and digital surveillance that will appeal to experts as well as laypeople.
Countdown to Zero Day – Kim Zetter
Zetter, a veteran journalist, tells the story of Stuxnet by treating the malware like a “character to be profiled.” The narrative offers a definitive account of Stuxnet (a malicious computer virus years in the making) and its impact on global cybersecurity. Stuxnet damaged the centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz, and it’s probably the most well-known hack in history. According to TechCrunch, “because of its impact, its sophistication, and its sheer boldness, the attack captured the imagination not only of the cybersecurity community, but the larger public as well.” It’s considered a must read for anyone in cyber, “but it also serves as a great introduction to the world of cybersecurity and cyberespionage for regular folks.”
Dark Wire – Joseph Cox
Masterfully told by journalist Joseph Cox, Dark Wire tells the inside story of the FBI’s Operation Trojan Shield and the Anom phone sting. The startup, called Anom, “sold encrypted phones to some of the worst criminals in the world, from high-profile smugglers to elusive mobsters.” The book weaves together interviews with the FBI, the developers and workers who ran the startup and the criminals using the “supposedly encrypted phones” who thought they were designed to avoid surveillance. In fact, everything was being funneled to the FBI and its international law enforcement partners.
Hack to the Future - Emily Crose
Crose offers a compelling, well-researched history of hacking culture from its inception and early days to its modern iterations and uses. TechCrunch calls Hack to the Future “an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the incredible and rich history of the hacking world and its many cultures.” Crose herself is a hacker and security researcher and she “covers some of the earliest hacks that were rooted in mischief, through to the modern day, with no detail spared on the decades in between.”
Dark Mirror – Barton Gellman
Gellman’s gripping, firsthand account of reporting on Edward Snowden is our pick for a cybersecurity beach read. More than a decade ago, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed “the vast scale of the U.S. government’s global surveillance operations by leaking thousands of top-secret tiles to a handful of journalists.” Barton Gellman was a Washington Post reporter at the time, and one of those journalists who Snowden sent leaked information. Gellman’s account narrates the inside of story of Snowden’s “initial outreach and the process of verifying and reporting the cache of classified government files provided by the whistleblower.” TechCrunch praises the book, suggesting that it be “required reading for all cyber journalists.”
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers – Andy Greenberg
In masterful, well-paced prose that reads “like a techno-political thriller,” Greenberg serves up an investigation into Russian cyberwarfare and some of the most devastating global attacks in history. According to the NordVPN blog, This “larger-than-life story of secret elite Russian hackers (the group was called Sandworm and reportedly sponsored by the Russian state) carrying out terror attacks in Ukraine and other NATO countries while dodging international efforts to bring them down” might sound like the stuff of big budget movies, but it’s a true story. Greenberg follows the 2014–2017 secret cyberwar that froze the operations of some of the world’s largest corporations, inflicting astronomical damage.
Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World – Joseph Menn
Menn traces the pioneering story of the origins of an elite hacker group’s effort, who at the time, wanted to change the world for the better, including developing “a groundbreaking tool (for the time) for testing password security, advised Bill Clinton, and created advanced techniques for remote PC control.” According to the NordVPN blog the group is still active today. This is a good read if you want to “remind yourself that there are good guys out there, too.”
If blogs are more your speed, these three appear on several lists of “top cybersecurity blogs.”
Brian Krebs is a former Washington Post reporter considered one of the premier bloggers to follow in the contemporary cyber security landscape. He covers security news and investigations as well as major alerts. A former Washington Post reporter he has been profiled by the NY Times, Business Week and NPR. https://krebsonsecurity.com/
Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, referred to as “a “security guru” by The Economist. He has written over a dozen books, and his blogs reaches over 250,000 readers. https://www.schneier.com/
Graham Cluey is a cybersecurity keynote speaker, podcaster, and industry veteran who’s been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, in senior roles at McAfee and Sophos. He has been inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame. https://grahamcluley.com/
Here is an extended list of other blogs to check out: https://bloggers.feedspot.com/cyber_security_blogs/
If you’re short on time and want more bite-sized reading options, look into these:
On WeForum, learn about Anthropic’s announcement of a “a frontier AI model so powerful (or risky) that the company decided not to release it to the public. This decision signals a critical shift in AI landscape: constraints on deployment are no longer commercial, but security-driven.”
As a follow up, if you have a subscription to The New York Times, a story published on April 15, 2026 - “It’s the End of the Internet as We Know It,” by Raffi Krikorian, chief technology officer at Mozilla - is worth the price of admission. In it Krikorian details how Anthropic, gave access to its AI model Mythos, “and $100 million in credits to use it,” to more than 50 of the world’s largest organizations, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google and JP Morgan Chase as a part of an innovative defensive cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing. While Anthropic made the choice to prioritize safety, other AI companies may be less than a year away from building something comparably powerful and dangerous, leaving potentially millions of people exposed to attack. This might be, as the title of the piece suggests, the end of the internet as we know it.
If you’re a gamer, you might be interested in Cyber Magazine’s piece that details how games and entertainment giant, Hasbro, managed a comprehensive cyberattack and how the lessons learned might be useful to others who may face similar attacks.
An article in Wired relates how AI is enabling North Korean hackers, who it labeled as “unsophisticated” to launch attacks and carry out a “profitable theft spree in the service of the North Korean state. By using the AI tools of US-based companies, they were able to steal some $12 million in cryptocurrency from their victims in three months.”
This article published on Linkedin offers insights into the impact of geopolitical tensions on the cybersecurity protocols of business and details the particular danger of nation-state attacks. Businesses now find themselves in the crossfire and “these aren’t opportunistic attacks. They’re methodical campaigns designed to steal intellectual property, map critical systems, and establish footholds that can be activated later.”
If you find yourself delayed at an airport, consider getting out your headphones to listen to some of these recommendations from NordLayer.
Darknet Diaries
Hosted by Jack Rhysider, this podcast routinely falls at the top of most “best of” lists. Since its inception in 2017, the podcast has gained popularity for in-depth cybercrime stories, rooted in Rhysider’s expertise in security engineering and SOC experience is said to be “enriching” as well as educational. This podcast features clear explanations and guests that make complicated industry speak understandable for the average reader.
Security Now
This podcast is considered exemplary due to the combined computer security expertise of Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte. Steve Gibson’s five decades of programming expertise has been a major part in shaping the foundations of the cybersecurity industry. He is also credited for developing pen light technology. Leo Laporte brings decades of knowledge from his career in tech shows. This is also one of the first podcasts in cybersecurity, covering tech events and security issues, with diverse listener appeal.
CyberWire Daily
Produced by the CyberWire team, this podcast has offered daily cybersecurity updates since 2015, becoming a trusted source of cybersecurity expertise on a global scale. David Bittner is credited with making complex cybersecurity threats and issues understandable. CyberWire, the creator of the podcast, is known for impartial, comprehensive cybersecurity coverage.
We hope these recommendations will keep you busy – and informed – as the weather turns warmer and summer plans allow for more reading and listening.
In the meantime, don’t forget to visit CYRIN. We stay open all summer, in fact 24/7. Our training platform teaches fundamental solutions that integrate actual cyber tools from CYRIN’s labs and allow you to practice at any time in the cloud, no special software required. Cyber is a team effort; to see what our team can do for you take a look at our course catalog, or better yet, contact us for further information and your personalized demonstration of CYRIN. Take a test drive and see for yourself!