We live in a digital, globalised world - this statement has become a banal truism but never before have the implications of this new world been more frightening nor important for our daily lives. It is a world that has become a law enforcement nightmare and every criminal's dream. The Internet and the digital world are rapidly becoming our business and social lifeblood - we cannot conceive a world where we do not broadcast what we are thinking to all our Facebook friends and where we express our individualism not through our actions but through 140-character messages on Twitter. We bank online, shop online, date online, learn online, work online and live, online. But have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned to protect us in the burgeoning digital world? Have we become too complacent about our personal security - sharing our thoughts, beliefs and banking details online with anyone who cares to relieve us of them? In this fascinating and compelling account, Misha Glenny, author of the international bestseller, McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime, explores the three fundamental threats facing us in the twenty-first century: cyber crime, cyber warfare and cyber industrial espionage. Governments and the private sector are losing billions of dollars a year fighting an ever-morphing, often invisible and often very smart, new breed of criminal. What links these threats? The answer is quite simple - the hacker. Glenny has travelled the world speaking with military and intelligence communities, police, politicians, lawyers and most importantly, with the hackers and their victims. He reveals the personalities of these twenty-first-century criminals and delves beneath the bravado and sheer audacity of their criminal activities to reveal an unlikely solution to cyber crime that authorities have, until now, been overlooking. Authoritative and completely engrossing, DarkMarketz is the crime book of our times. It will, in turns, have you on the edge of your seat as the action moves from Yorkshire to the Ukraine, Istanbul to Calgary, and, very quickly, on your knees, praying that you have been wiser than the hackers. DarkMarketz is a thrilling and vital call to arms - for our governments, for the private sector and for people like you and me.
