Microsoft's Russinovich: How to stop a real 'Zero Day' disaster

[Renew Deal]

I've just finished reading the book "Zero Day" by Mark Russinovich. This is the first fiction book that has computers and technology at the heart of it where I didn't angrily shout to the invisible author about the inaccuracy of the tech storyline. Even though the story is a work of fiction, the technical portion is spot-on -- and downright scary. But that makes sense considering Russinovich's background: He's a technical fellow at Microsoft, the senior-most technical position there, but is known globally for his contribution to the IT community through the Sysinternals tools many of us have used at one time or another.

The story involves the release of different types of viruses and rootkits that have the ability to do everything from crashing planes to overheating nuclear power plants to swiping company data and billing records, crushing entire companies. Sounds impossible? Perhaps you didn't read the headlines earlier this month that highlighted a computer virus in the cockpits of the U.S. drone fleet that logged every keystroke of these drones while they flew missions over war zones. Yes, the danger is very real, and combined with a great storyline (which I won't spoil -- read it for yourself), it had me on the edge of my seat.
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http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/microsofts-russinovich-how-stop-real-zero-day-disaster-178356