Spam Nation
by Brian Krebs · first published 2014
64% recommend36% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Insider account of organized email spam and cybercrime, covering the motives behind spam, the major actors, and how spammers get paid; suits readers interested in infosec history and the criminal economy behind it.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Explores "the criminal masterminds driving some of the biggest spam and hacker operations targeting Americans and their bank accounts. Tracing the rise, fall, and alarming resurrection of the digital mafia behind the two largest spam pharmacies--and countless viruses, phishing, and spyware attacks--he delivers the first definitive narrative of the global spam problem and its threat to consumers everywhere"--Amazon.com.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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Brian Krebs' book Spam Nation talks about this quite a bit. So many people still buy prescription medications and fake watches and such through junk email. Enough that it still makes financial sense for the spammers to keep at it.
on “Adware Bundler IronSource Raises $105M to Buy Startups Ahead of IPO” ↗On the topic of Non-fiction cybercrime books, one that provides very good insight imho on the history of spam albeit a little hard to follow is "Spam Nation", by Brian Krebs
on “Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?” ↗…of the most recommended books on cybersecurity sorted by how often they were mentioned. Hacking Exposed 7 by Stuart McClure Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick Spam Nation by Brian Krebs Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski Threat Modeling by Adam Shostack Social Engineering by Christopher Hadnagy The Hacker Playbook 3 by Peter Kim The Practice of Network…
on “Show HN: A compilation of cybersecurity book recommendations from 25 articles” ↗I really enjoyed Brian Krebs' Spam Nation and I think it would appeal to the HN crowd. http://www.amazon.com/Spam-Nation-Organized-Cybercrimefrom-E...
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read in 2016?” ↗Spam Nation by Brian Krebs is excellent. It delves deep into the email spam scene, and covers some big events and the people around it. He talks to users which buy stuff they are advertised in spam emails, and looks…
on “Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?” ↗I recommend reading the book "Spam Nation" by Brian Krebs(sp?). He goes into the different motives behind spam, the big actors, and how people get paid for creating spam.
on “You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA” ↗Krebs is a national treasure. If you ever read his book "SPAM NATION", you'd see how valuable he is. He stood up to Russian cybercrime in the 00s who even tried to threaten his life. He got bulletproof hosters taken-down again and again. These hosters were hosting phrama…
on “E-Crime Rapper 'Punchmade Dev' Debuts Card Shop” ↗…Is. Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More: Working with People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, Now! Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing. Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-From Global Epidemic to Your Front Door. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Badass: Making Users Awesome. Social Engineering in IT Security: Tools, Tactics, and Techniques. How to Make Sense…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite non-fiction books of all time?” ↗…of murder. Unrelated but also hilarious, Eastern European hackers sending coke to his house to have him SWAT-ed, not knowing he reads their forums and knew in advance. For the former, read his book Spam Nation. It is a wonderful book from the beginning of his adventures into infosec journalism. I finished it in three days. krebsonsecurity.com/tag/spam-nation/
on “Tracking a Bluetooth Skimmer Gang in Mexico (Part I)” ↗…reposting a bunch of hate-Tweets is stupid. Yes, Krebs' does his own research, but he also has hundreds of security researchers and contacts that provide him info, many of those are insiders. In his book Spam Nation, he even goes to Russia to visit a crime boss to ask tough questions. This isn't some cyberstalker. Krebs is a better researcher than most, so I tend to trust his doxx. Most of the info he publishes…
on “New York Times says Krebs wrongly implicated Briton in Twitter hack” ↗Spam Nation by Brian Krebs. It's nice but I started reading other books while being half way in. A sign that I experience it more as a study book than a relaxing read (ok, I did the same with Game of Thrones). I'll…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗According to Spam Nation by Krebson Security, Spam works because people can get cheap prescription drugs. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1492603236 http://krebsonsecurity.com
on “ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway” ↗> What's wrong if a bot buys some of your inventory, pays for it and everything? In the book "Spam Nation" (Brian Krebs), a group of students try to fight fake online pharmacies. To do this, they created an army of bots and placed thousands of fake orders every day. The goal was to create so many fake orders…
on “Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side” ↗Brian Krebs book, Spam Nation, which dissected 2 leaked Russian "online pharmacy" databases, has the same sort of breakdown for US drug orders. European orders had less health related drugs and more "recreational" drugs like erectile…
on “Mailed asthma, cancer, erectile drugs are siezed the most, despite opioid claims” ↗…or otherwise absconded with more than four years of email records from ChronoPay — at the time a major Russian online payment provider whose CEO and co-founders were the chief subjects of my 2014 book, Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime. > Querying those records on Yalishanda’s primary email address — stas_vl@mail.ru — reveal that this individual in 2010 sought payment processing services from…