The following review appeared in the October 2017 issue of CHOICE
Cognitive Hack addresses an area of cybersecurity that has not been vastly explored—the human element. Most cybersecurity authors focus on how technology can be used and/or adapted to make an enterprise’s infrastructure secure. Bone, a risk advisory consultant and an editor, aims “to introduce readers to the evolution of emerging technologies …” and to “address what some believe to be the weakest link in cybersecurity—the human mind.” The author examines six distinct areas: understanding various vulnerabilities, exploring advances in situational awareness, “the cyber paradox,” the risk of relying solely on industry reports, delving into a hacker’s mind, and providing a “cognitive risk framework” for cybersecurity. In each of these topics, Bone uses real-world examples of security breaches and how the human element affected the severity of the breach. He also supplies ways the human element could have been mitigated in the breach, thus lessening the severity. In addition, Bone explains that cognitive hacking is in its infancy, and much work and research still needs to be completed. For those interested in the topic, he lists several areas where further research is needed.
–T. Farmer, Arkansas State University
