An airliner's controls abruptly fail mid-flight over the Atlantic. An oil tanker runs aground in Japan when its navigational system suddenly stops ...
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Sep 30, 2011
Jon
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A little disappointed. I've heard a lot of hype about this book, but it had some issues. I found the flow awkward and some of the characters seemed silted. Is the premise believable? Yeah. Did the solution make sense? Not really sure. [return][return]The technology descriptions also seemed out of place and didn't flow well. I'm not sure they would have done much for someone who didn't know the lingo, and those who did would find some of the descriptions strange and over-simplistic.[retur
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Aug 20, 2011
Hinch
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I was eager to read Zero Day following an enthusiastic recommendation from Steve Gibson of the Security Now podcast. The author, Mark Russinovich, is employed as a senior technical resource at Microsoft, is recognised as an expert in the Windows operating system, and was cofounder of Wininternls, a small company that released a suite of highly respected low-level administration and debugging tools.
The premise of the book is both sound and scary. A small terrorist group coordinates th More...
The premise of the book is both sound and scary. A small terrorist group coordinates th More...
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Apr 24, 2011
Nathan
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Apr 03, 2011
David
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This book is an easy read for anyone who has ever used a computer connected to the internet. The book is even more interesting and compelling if you have ever installed an anti-virus product on a PC. So, there you go; this book will be a good read for almost anyone who picks it up.
The plot is all to believable. A group is creating a storm of worms and viruses to invade the computer systems that control our banking, airlines, power generation – you know, every part of our life. This thr
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Mar 21, 2011
Igal Tabachnik
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The name Mark Russinovich should be familiar to anyone in the IT industry. He’s the co-founder of Winternals (which operated the Sysinternals website), now owned by Microsoft. Mark is a co-author of the Windows Internals books, and the creator of such tools as Process Explorer, Autoruns and Process Monitor, which are just a small subset of the Sysinternals tools arsenal, which is being used daily by programmers, IT and computer forensics experts around the world.
I first heard about “Ze More...
I first heard about “Ze More...
Mar 14, 2011
Tony
rated it: 
This debut technothriller by one of Microsoft's technical gurus features al-Qaeda, cyber-terrorism on a global scale, a network security hero who lost his lady in 9/11 (which, he happened to predict while working for the CIA, only to be ignored), and not one, but two other exceedingly attractive female IT people. What else does one need to know? While the author posits some fairly evocative set pieces illustrating how the world's economy can be brought to a standstill by a few relatively clever
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Mar 13, 2011
Misha
rated it: 
*Rating is 3.5*
Mark Russinovich works at Microsoft in one of the senior-most technical positions. Considering the background of the author, the premise of Zero Day becomes even more compelling.
Zero Day has a thrilling start. Several seemingly unrelated incidents take place all over the world, all involving computer failures. The controls of a British Airways flight fails. So do the computers in a highly reputed firm based in NYC. A glitch in the computer databases in va More...
Mark Russinovich works at Microsoft in one of the senior-most technical positions. Considering the background of the author, the premise of Zero Day becomes even more compelling.
Zero Day has a thrilling start. Several seemingly unrelated incidents take place all over the world, all involving computer failures. The controls of a British Airways flight fails. So do the computers in a highly reputed firm based in NYC. A glitch in the computer databases in va More...
Feb 21, 2011
Beverly
rated it:
Last summer, news of the Stuxnet worm, suspected of being crafted by a nation state to attack Iran’s nuclear program, became the first public example of a virus created specifically to destroy infrastructure systems. More recently, cyber-attacks in support of Wikileaks that disabled high-profile web sites like Visa and Mastercard underscore the ease with which cyber armies can be enlisted and called upon to wreak havoc.
Author Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow at Microsoft (Microsof More...
Author Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow at Microsoft (Microsof More...
Jan 29, 2011
Val
rated it:
My first though on this book was "If I get the opportunity to push the sale of any book, this is the book I would choose, for the simple fact that we need to be educated in cyber terrorism." A thought provoking thriller, Zero Day is by far one of the most exciting yet terrifying books I have ever read. In our generation, there is no where you can look that is not controlled by computers in some capacity. Just think about it for a minute. Online banking, your power at home, the airplane
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Aug 22, 2011
Tiffany
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May 19, 2011
Ivan
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Nice idea and Mark definitely knows his security (he should, he's one of the foremost experts on MS Windows), but I think he generally sort of blew this one. The story is intriguing, but it's somewhat predictable and it's full of stereotypes and cliches. The hackers are Russian, cynical and ready to do anything for money. The Arab terrorists are the ones behind the attacks and they want to kill us all, because they hate our freedom. If you are into this kind of stuff you can just watch conservat
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Apr 08, 2011
Mary (BookHounds)
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Zero Day explores what could happen if some hackers are turned to true evil by terrorists. It examines what could happen if a doomsday virus is sent to almost every computer in the western world and wonders if we are truly too dependent on them. Jeff, a computer analyst, leaves his government job after they fail to act on intelligence that could have prevented 9/11. He is called to help a law firm where a the doomsday virus has been triggered a month early by a wrong date in the system. Real
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Oct 28, 2011
Lianne
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This book is a first novel by a computer expert with a number of non-fiction computer books to his name, and this book has a definite agenda to it (ie People don't pay enough attention to protecting computers from malicious code).
Arab terrorists want to start a new 9-11, except now they are using viruses to attack western computers. A few computers (with their system dates set wrong) start crashing, and in some cases people die as a result. The hero and the heroine are on the track o More...
Arab terrorists want to start a new 9-11, except now they are using viruses to attack western computers. A few computers (with their system dates set wrong) start crashing, and in some cases people die as a result. The hero and the heroine are on the track o More...
Mar 16, 2011
Crystal
rated it:
Zero Day is a thrill-ride that is scary and yet you can't quit turning the pages either. I enjoyed this possibly plausible techno-thriller from Mr. Russinovich from start to finish.
I really liked the characters. For a suspense/thriller that is really plot-based, a fair amount of character development went into the main character of Jeff. The rest of the characters aren't as fleshed out, but their motives and reasons for doing what they do and who they are aren't as integral to More...
I really liked the characters. For a suspense/thriller that is really plot-based, a fair amount of character development went into the main character of Jeff. The rest of the characters aren't as fleshed out, but their motives and reasons for doing what they do and who they are aren't as integral to More...
Feb 10, 2012
Marcus
rated it:
The story was decent, but nothing to write home about. People on Amazon seem to love it, so I might just be a party-pooper on this type of story. I'm curious if I'd still enjoy Dan Brown books like I did in high school.
The mission of the book is awesome. As a software engineer, this book has changed the way I think about computer security. It's a big deal! I'm glad I read this book because it shifted me from thinking of security as an inconvenience to being a top priority.
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The mission of the book is awesome. As a software engineer, this book has changed the way I think about computer security. It's a big deal! I'm glad I read this book because it shifted me from thinking of security as an inconvenience to being a top priority.
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Apr 19, 2011
S.D.
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When I first saw the movie, THE NET, I thought that was the worst that could ever happen with computer technology but ZERO DAY proves creative people can always find ways to use their talents to cause harm. The anniversary of 9/11 is approaching and chilling events are taking place. An airliner’s onboard computer fails to respond, same at a nuclear plant, an oil tanker, and even a hospital where a computer gives out the wrong dose of medicine killing several people. Jeff Aiken lost a fiancée
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Mar 20, 2011
Adam
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How vulnerable are we to a coordinated computer security threat. Are we over dependent on computers? These are the questions posed by Zero Day in the form of the story of Jeff Aiken, a jaded former intelligence agent now hunting down the solution to the toughest virus he has ever encountered.
I enjoyed this book, and felt it was a good first effort by a freshman author. The story varies from using esoteric technical jargon the reader is expected to know, to explaining tech in layman's t More...
I enjoyed this book, and felt it was a good first effort by a freshman author. The story varies from using esoteric technical jargon the reader is expected to know, to explaining tech in layman's t More...
Mar 11, 2011
Julie
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Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst with his own computer business now, is hired by a law firm in New York to help them recover their computer systems after a virus caused them to crash. At the same time, his former colleague, Daryl, who still works for the government, is working on a computer glitch at a nearby hospital that resulted in several patient deaths. Then they start hearing about other computer issues ~ in airplanes, oil tankers, nuclear power plants and assembly lines around the
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Sep 08, 2011
Siddharth
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I would have given this book four stars (I reserve 5 stars for really good books like Harry Potter Series, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, etc) weren't it for the few unnecessary sex scenes here and there.
This is a fast paced novel and you won't get bored or feel like putting down the book once you start reading it. The plot revolves around a possibility of what might happen when every computer goes down (believe me, it's not impossible and the chances are high) and how the economy and the d More...
This is a fast paced novel and you won't get bored or feel like putting down the book once you start reading it. The plot revolves around a possibility of what might happen when every computer goes down (believe me, it's not impossible and the chances are high) and how the economy and the d More...
May 05, 2011
Joemmama
rated it:
This is a cautionary tale about cyber-terrorism, by Mark Russinovich, who is in the top tech position at Microsoft, so he should know!
As we use computers for more and more, we have the technology to help keep ourselves safe, but not everyone uses it or keeps it up to date. Cyber attacks are a real threat, and in this book we see the nightmare come to life. The threats escalate, deaths happen, due to computerized pharmacy records, businesses face ruin, and a reactor meltdown is imminent More...
As we use computers for more and more, we have the technology to help keep ourselves safe, but not everyone uses it or keeps it up to date. Cyber attacks are a real threat, and in this book we see the nightmare come to life. The threats escalate, deaths happen, due to computerized pharmacy records, businesses face ruin, and a reactor meltdown is imminent More...
Apr 20, 2011
Chris
rated it:
This is a quick, easy, fun read - a bit of a popcorn book. I found it very reminiscent of Dan Brown, only it didn't jolt me out of the story with technical details which were just plain wrong (which I of course expected of Mark - why would he get the details wrong?). There were a few passages that came of wooden (nobody who actually played computer games would ever talk about them like his characters did - but I understand that someone talking about computer games the way people who play compute
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Mar 24, 2011
Uriah
rated it:
A first reads win. I was looking forward to reading this book because the story sounded really interesting, however I almost didn't read it when it opened with an "adult" scene. I skipped over it and kept reading and found that most of the rest of the book was okay. Still, this isn't a book I want to have around the house and will be donated away.
The premise of a cyber-terrorist attack is well laid out here and you can easily see how we are susceptible as a nation to t More...
The premise of a cyber-terrorist attack is well laid out here and you can easily see how we are susceptible as a nation to t More...
Feb 22, 2012
Darren
rated it:
Unimpressed.
Upon reading the jacket, I had high hopes for this book, but it just never took off. The beginning of the story lacked any real hook, only the failure of computers; and though lives were at stake as a result of their failure, that impact did not resonate with me. I kept waiting for a larger, more menacing plot to rear its head, but all we got was computer failure on a grander scale. The implications of this were, once again, not depicted well enough for me to feel that i More...
Upon reading the jacket, I had high hopes for this book, but it just never took off. The beginning of the story lacked any real hook, only the failure of computers; and though lives were at stake as a result of their failure, that impact did not resonate with me. I kept waiting for a larger, more menacing plot to rear its head, but all we got was computer failure on a grander scale. The implications of this were, once again, not depicted well enough for me to feel that i More...
Jun 08, 2011
Doug
rated it:
I loved this book and look forward to additional books by Mr, Russinovich. The storyline is unfortunately very plausible, a cyber-terrorist attack on the internet, with our dependency on the web. Since the previous review does a good job describing the plot I will not rehash that in this review. In my opinion the storyline is excellent and well developed, the characters are interesting and the relationships between them engaging, and the pace of the story is exhilerating. The only thing tha
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Apr 23, 2011
Chad
rated it:
2 Stars
Drawing on a distinguished career in the computer world that included being one of the top dogs at Microsoft, Mark Russinovich has turned his experience with cybersecurity into a save-the-world thriller. The novel’s premise of terrorists using computers and the Internet to stage the next great offensive against the western world is both plausible and frightening. And while Russinovich has a more thorough grasp of the methods by which such an attack is possible, he fails to d More...
Drawing on a distinguished career in the computer world that included being one of the top dogs at Microsoft, Mark Russinovich has turned his experience with cybersecurity into a save-the-world thriller. The novel’s premise of terrorists using computers and the Internet to stage the next great offensive against the western world is both plausible and frightening. And while Russinovich has a more thorough grasp of the methods by which such an attack is possible, he fails to d More...
Nov 01, 2011
Abdelmoumen
rated it:
I liked the way Mark talks about security. He's kind of teaching the readers about the different aspects of security involved in the story as the story develops.
What I didn't appreciate in the novel, however, is the way Mark shows Muslims and Arabs ! It's a very dark image he shows, and I don't think that's fair. As a Muslim, and Arab myself (and a proud one, also) I know that there are some among us who give this stereotype some credibility, but that doesn't give anyone the right to gener More...
What I didn't appreciate in the novel, however, is the way Mark shows Muslims and Arabs ! It's a very dark image he shows, and I don't think that's fair. As a Muslim, and Arab myself (and a proud one, also) I know that there are some among us who give this stereotype some credibility, but that doesn't give anyone the right to gener More...
Aug 13, 2011
Nathaniel
rated it:
Standard thriller fare. The author has a respectable amount of computer knowledge under his belt, but the overall story is sort of implausible and it irks me that all of his well-educated, highly-competent computer geeks relapse into 12-year-old "zomg i r unble 2 spl on IM." Every decent programmer I know manages to use full sentences when instant messaging, generally with better punctuation and grammar than the population at large.
I found myself skimming by the end of the More...
I found myself skimming by the end of the More...
Apr 12, 2011
Jill
rated it:
This book is meant to grab your attention by suspense while the author hammers in his agenda, which is to make the world more aware of, and therefore to take more precautions against, the vulnerability of computer systems to terrorist sabotage.
I’m willing to overlook a lot of the shortcomings because of the seriousness of the subject, and because I believe in the importance of the problems outlined by the author. But I sure wish the execution had been better. A writer with skill More...
I’m willing to overlook a lot of the shortcomings because of the seriousness of the subject, and because I believe in the importance of the problems outlined by the author. But I sure wish the execution had been better. A writer with skill More...
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Jun 19, 2011
Harry
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Entertaining and educational, this techno thriller is Mr. Russinovich's first novel and it sends home a very eye opening and unsettling message. He has an extensive background in computers and networks and has been an esteemed Technical Fellow at Microsoft. In his story he presents a very vivid picture of the vulnerabilities and devastating outcomes that are possible in a cyber attack on the US and Europe. The story starts out slowly with an investigation into the mysterious failures and anomali
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Jun 26, 2011
Bob
rated it:
A page-turner, the possibility of such a devastating cyber-attack brought to life by one of the most respected practitioners of software internals investigation and development. I'm a big fan of the Systems Internals tools developed by Mark Russinovich, the author, and one of the primary reasons I chose to read this book. As a first-time author, I commend Mark on his ability to put together a thriller with nice twists and to weave some of the knowledge he has about how malware gets manufactured
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