He’s broken numerous national stories, including the FBI’s use of spyware in criminal and national security investigations a hacker’s penetration of a Secret Service agent’s confidential files and the arrest of an Army intelligence officer accused of leaking thousands of State Department documents to whistle-blowing website WikiLeak.

He oversees cybercrime, privacy, and political coverage for and edits the award-winning Threat Level blog (), which he founded in 2005. KEVIN POULSEN is a senior editor at and a contributor to Wired magazine. Offering remarkable access to both cops and criminals and unmatched insight into a massive crime wave Americans know far too little about, KINGPIN is the rare page-turner that has the potential to ignite a national conversation. KINGPIN is perhaps the first narrative to actually explain the workings of the cutting-edge hacks these fraudsters use to ply their trade-browser exploits, database attacks, Trojan horses, and much more-and to trace the complex routes by which they turn stolen data into millions of dollars. Bringing not only sterling reportorial access, but detailed knowledge of what makes this world tick, Poulsen pours his unmatched access and expertise into book form for the first time, delivering a gripping cat-and-mouse narrative-and an unprecedented view into the twenty-first century’s signature form of organized crime. Along the way, Poulsen also draws on his extensive technical expertise a former hacker himself, he-like his subject Max Butler-was arrested in 1991 and received what was at the time the longest prison sentence ever handed out to a hacker.

Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen