Tom Clancy’s True Faith and Allegiance by Mark
Greaney explores the world of cyber threats and cyber security.
Government officials have been talking about these dangers
for a decade; yet, it seems it has been all talk and no action,
that is until Jack Ryan Sr. became President.
The plot begins with seemingly random acts against America’s
military and national security officials. First, an armed
man in a crowded restaurant attacks U.S. Navy Commander Scott
Hagan, captain of the USS James Greer, when on leave. Hagan
demands to know how the would-be assassin knew his exact location,
but the man dies before he says more. This is followed by
an American operative being arrested in Iran for spying, even
though he has made the trip numerous times before. It comes
to a head when a man is kidnapped by American covert officials
accused of being a traitor and reveals he gave away classified
information to save his wife from being outted as an American
operative.
Through much investigation it is determined American intelligence
is under attack by someone selling classified information
on the dark web. The information up for grabs included lengthy
and detailed profiles of America’s highest-ranking military
personnel and undercover operators. As more deadly events
involving American military and intelligence personnel follow,
all over the globe, it becomes clear that there has been some
kind of massive information breach sold to ISIS that uses
this weapon of stolen data to take out targets. President
Ryan asks the Campus, a top-secret intelligence agency, to
track the leak of this source.
This scenario appears to be a warning to those that use social
media since the cyber antagonist was able to find what people
were doing, where they were, and piece together this information.
Greaney believes “People worry about the NSA tracking
them, but they are actually allowing this through social media.
This book talks a lot about social media intelligence that
is completely open source. For example, we were able to track
Russian soldiers fighting in the Ukraine through their Instagram
accounts. They were shown to be 65 miles within the Ukraine
at the same time the Russian government was saying it was
not true. But the absence of information can also give someone
information. Say you went to college majoring in Arabic studies,
and then suddenly your social media goes dark. With a leap
of faith a person might suspect you of going into the covert
world.”
The theme of the book shows how government cannot adequately
protect its own agencies, corporations, or even individual
American citizens. Greaney wants readers to understand, “This
is a very realistic plot. Remember when China breached the
database of the Office Of Personnel Management. Twenty-five
million records were lost. Anyone who had applied for a classified
position was at risk. They did not even have a cyber security
department. What I did was take things in the real world and
fictionalized it.”
Current events allow for readers to grasp the multitude of
importance of a security breach. Greaney noted, “I thought
of the Secretary of State who had an unsecure server while
emailing on Yahoo. This is one of those instances when I did
not want to make our government officials that accurate. I
did not want it happening on the Jack Ryan watch. It seems
the real world is more unrealistic than this plot line.”
Unlike some other thriller authors, people know that in a
Clancy novel some of the main characters can be killed off.
What Greaney has done effectively with this story is to expand
the Clancy world by refilling the ranks of the Campus. The
new characters added or have taken on more of a role. Adara
Sherman and Midas, ex Delta Force, enhance the story with
their grittiness.
True Faith and Allegiance allows readers to have
their eyes opened to the dangers of cyber breaches. It is
a warning for the US government to quit doing the talk and
start doing the walk regarding the need for a strong cyber
security program.
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