Book Review - The Art of Deception

 Known as the first internet hacker in the history of the world and always shown on the FBI's Most Wanted list, "Kevin D. Mitnick" focused on the term "Social Engineering" in his book called "The Art of Deception". The author proves that using social engineering is a good way to reach things in simple ways that seem very difficult, and also shows solutions for counter-defense.

Before writing the review, I would like to give a background of the author, Kevin Mitnick. He (also known as Condor) was one of the first computer hackers and is most famously known. He was caught by the FBI on February 15, 1995. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for penetrating the computer networks of companies such as Fujitsu, Motoɾola, Nokia, and Sun Microsystems.

The book called “The Art of Deception”, which consists of 4 parts, focused on the weakest link of the chain, the human. In the next two chapters, he talked about the ways to circumvent a company's security ring, and the mistakes made at the end of it, with real-life examples. It reveals that in addition to accessing the information of businesses or customers by hacking, this information can be obtained with a few phone calls without pressing a key on the keyboard. He underlines that a social engineer needs a few important internal notes in order to achieve what he wants and that he has full confidence in using it, on the other hand, he also says that the other person should always be trusted. Mitnick, who reveals the great security vulnerability of the concept of social engineering created by this and similar methods, gives wide coverage to the fact that the measures to be taken against this are misunderstood by the companies. To give an example, he underlines that although the company takes superior security measures so that information is not leaked and seized, as the human element, which is the weakest chain in this system, is high - this security wall (humans) can be easily broken with a few phone calls. 

Our author, who is currently giving information technology consultancy and speaking at conferences on internal security, has stated many methods of overcoming this problem in the 4th chapter of the book. Here, he emphasizes that all people working in the company, from the highest level to the lowest unit, should be trained in business security as well as information network security. It is his responsibility to train personnel units such as security, cleaning, and guard working in an enterprise, especially about which information should be given and which information should not be given. He already states this and its importance with examples in the previous chapters.

“Kevin D. Mitnick”, emphasizing the need for people to be conscious of our corporate and personal safety both in the past and today, by working on the theme of social engineering, includes information full of life-saving experiences on a very important issue for today's world.