The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime

A real-life technological thriller about a band of eccentric misfits taking on the biggest cybersecurity threats of our time.

"What Michael Lewis did for baseball in Moneyball, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden do brilliantly for the world of ransomware and hackers. Cinematic, big in scope, and meticulously reported, this book is impossible to put down." --Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers

Scattered across the world, an elite team of code crackers is working tirelessly to thwart the defining cyber scourge of our time. You've probably never heard of them. But if you work for a school, a business, a hospital, or a municipal government, or simply cherish your digital data, you may be painfully familiar with the team's sworn enemy: ransomware. Again and again, an unlikely band of misfits, mostly self-taught and often struggling to make ends meet, have outwitted the underworld of hackers who lock computer networks and demand huge payments in return for the keys.

The Ransomware Hunting Team traces the adventures of these unassuming heroes and how they have used their skills to save millions of ransomware victims from paying billions of dollars to criminals. Working tirelessly from bedrooms and back offices, and refusing payment, they've rescued those whom the often hapless FBI has been unwilling or unable to help. Foremost among them is Michael Gillespie, a cancer survivor and cat lover who got his start cracking ransomware while working at a Nerds on Call store in the town of Normal, Illinois. Other teammates include the brilliant, reclusive Fabian Wosar, a high school dropout from Germany who enjoys bantering with the attackers he foils, and his protégé, the British computer science prodigy Sarah White. Together, they have established themselves as the most effective force against an escalating global threat. This book follows them as they put their health, personal relationships, and financial security on the line to navigate the technological and moral challenges of combating digital hostage taking.

Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden's The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller that illuminates a dangerous new era of cybercrime.

Author: Renee Dudley, Daniel Golden
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 10/25/2022
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.22lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.28w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780374603304


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2022 pg. 10
Publishers Weekly 08/22/2022
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2022
Booklist 09/01/2022 pg. 14