11 March 2026

Gaining Awareness of Cyber Threats

In 2025, I read two cybersecurity books, Confident Cyber Security and Hacked: The Secrets Behind Cyber Attacks, written by the same author, Jessica Barker.

I thought the Hacked book would be similar to Confident Cyber Security, but it isn't. It contains many real-world stories about different types of fraud, scams, and other cybercrimes, painting a clear picture of the dangers of the online world. Both books are great, easy to read, and I highly recommend them to everyone..

A couple of weeks ago I came across a great video The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew made by Veritasium. It describs how hackers (most likely state-sponsored actors) almost managed to get malicious code included in the Linux operating system, that would give them access to almost all Linux servers in 2021. It is mind-blowing to think about the consequences if the issue had not been discovered just a few weeks before release by a developer working on a completely different open-source project (PostgreSQL), who noticed an increase in connection times in a new software version.

The video provides a nice overview of the history of open-source software and a great explanation of some complex topics. If you haven't watched it yet, set aside about an hour and enjoy the high-quality content.