Not sure how to feel about this book, I suppose it is a decent book for getting a better understanding of cybercrime and capitalizes on O'Neill's career history, but it felt very sensational and some of the advice was just..not great. Overall, I don't hate this book, but I don't think it was actually great. 2/5

Anti-Helpful and Anti-Informative Digressions on Cybercrime
Eric O’Neill, Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime: Cybersecurity Tactics to Outsmart Hackers and Disarm Scammers (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, January 1, 2025). Hardcover: $30.
**
“National security strategist and former FBI counterintelligence operative Eric O’Neill exposes how nefarious cybercriminals relentlessly attempt to access your data and wallet, and arms you with his proven tactics for spotting and neutralizing cyberthreats to protect yourself, your family, and your business.” This would be great, if this book actually achieved this. I looked into a chapter on how-to-skip-school with im-personalization first. It begins with the author digressing to describe once skipping school. Some crimes are then abstractly mentioned before a return to the personal anecdote. There is a single fact that notes that between 2019-24 the BEC scam most people victimized by it between $26-55 billion. The following description of how an attack takes place is too conversational. People receive an email with an invoice. A few scenarios are mentioned that have been in the news. There is no organization of ideas that would have been needed to guide a reader towards understanding the categories and stages of such scams to truly avoid them. This book sets a high ambition but it fails to deliver on this promise. Most of this book is counter-helpful. For example, a section on “Act Like a Spy Hunter” merely advises not to pay ransom to avoid encouraging people into crime. I do not trust this author, as he seems to be wearing two hats.
“Cybercriminals, domestic and foreign, are launching attacks day and night using malware, phishing scams, deepfakes, artificial intelligence, and other unscrupulous schemes designed to steal your data and hold it hostage. When they win, it costs nations, businesses, and individuals trillions of dollars annually. It’s possible to fight back, but it’ll take more than a strong password… O’Neill shares his method—called PAID—that you can use to defend yourself and stop attackers in their tracks: Prepare: Pinpoint your most critical data, identify where it resides and who can access it, and build your defenses around it. Assess: Continuously reassess your security and apply counterintelligence tactics to identify scams and cyberattacks. Investigate: Stay educated and hunt the threat before the threat hunts you. Decide: Using your new aptitude, make smart, rapid decisions under pressure…” No, this book does not give any useful tools for how to respond, other than for these criminals to be “paid” when victims fall for scams without having been educated how to avoid them, and then succumbing to pressure.
--Pennsylvania Literary Journal: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-summer-2025/