Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls that Derail Us

Cybersecurity is fraught with hidden and unsuspected dangers and difficulties. Despite our best intentions, there are common and avoidable mistakes that arise from folk wisdom, faulty assumptions about the world, and our own human biases. Cybersecurity implementations, investigations, and research all suffer as a result. Many of the bad practices sound logical, especially to people new to the field of cybersecurity, and that means they get adopted and repeated despite not being correct. For instance, why isn't the user the weakest link?

In Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls that Derail Us, three cybersecurity pioneers don't just deliver the first comprehensive collection of falsehoods that derail security from the frontlines to the boardroom; they offer expert practical advice for avoiding or overcoming each myth.

Whatever your cybersecurity role or experience, Eugene H. Spafford, Leigh Metcalf, and Josiah Dykstra will help you surface hidden dangers, prevent avoidable errors, eliminate faulty assumptions, and resist deeply human cognitive biases that compromise prevention, investigation, and research. Throughout the book, you'll find examples drawn from actual cybersecurity events, detailed techniques for recognizing and overcoming security fallacies, and recommended mitigations for building more secure products and businesses.

Read over 175 common misconceptions held by users, leaders, and cybersecurity professionals, along with tips for how to avoid them.

Learn the pros and cons of analogies, misconceptions about security tools, and pitfalls of faulty assumptions. What really is the weakest link? When aren't "best practices" best?

Discover how others understand cybersecurity and improve the effectiveness of cybersecurity decisions as a user, a developer, a researcher, or a leader.

Get a high-level exposure to why statistics and