Cyber Knights

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Here be Dragons!

In the Age of Discovery unexplored areas of a map were often marked with this warning, informing travelers, seafarers and explorers of danger. Today such a warning could easily be applied to the internet, a place where much of the world’s commerce is carried out and the exchange of information and ideas takes place, for there are very real dragons lurking in the dark, unexplored regions of cyberspace, creatures that seek out the unwary and gullible. To protect those who fall prey to them requires a new kind of warrior, a cyber knight armed with the skills, weapons and savvy needed to slay today’s dragons. One such digital warrior is Andy Webb, a former British Army officer. Together with Karen Spencer, a shy, twenty-something American who is a wizard when it comes to software and Tommy Tyler, a rough and ready ex-soldier and hardware expert Webb formed Century Consultants, a cyber security firm that works to defend its clients from the hackers, criminals and hired cyber assassins who seek out victims on the world wide web.

Cyber Knights is a collection of eight stories based on true-life cyber vulnerabilities that have been or can be exploited by criminal elements to attack individuals or the electronic infrastructure of an institution. The core element of all the stories is Century Consultants, a cyber security firm based in the UK that deals with problems created by hackers, and cyber assassins hired to commit various crimes or wreck havoc on the life of an individual, a company or an institution via the Internet. Stories are followed by a short ‘Story Behind the Story’ account that relates the fictional narrative to a real world incident that inspired the story as well as a ‘Technology Behind the Story’ piece that provides a description of the actual devices, programs and techniques characters on both sides of the issue in the story employed.