Fountain & Key Press
The Cybersecurity Fear Machine — book cover

CYBERSECURITY / PUBLIC POLICY

The Cybersecurity Fear Machine

How Inflated Threats Hijacked America's Critical Infrastructure Policy

The threat is real. The panic is manufactured.

347 pages ISBN 978-1-972842-01-0 Fountain & Key Press

The policy and investment landscape surrounding OT cybersecurity is built more on a myth of imminent catastrophe than on empirical evidence.

About the Book


We are told our power grids, water systems, and industrial networks stand on the brink of catastrophic cyber attack. Billions are spent. Policies multiply. An entire industry thrives on the alarm.

But what if the threat has been deliberately inflated?

In The Cybersecurity Fear Machine, Daniel Ward, Ph.D., pulls back the curtain on the ecosystem that manufactures urgency around operational technology security—the vendors selling fear, the consultants amplifying risk, and the agencies justifying ever-expanding budgets. Drawing on historical incident data, declassified reports, and international comparisons, Ward reveals a stark gap between the catastrophe we are promised and the evidence on the record.

The real vulnerabilities are not the ones that make headlines. They live in fragmented governance, aging systems no one wants to fund, and an industry more invested in selling solutions than solving problems.

This is the book the cybersecurity establishment does not want you to read.

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About the Author


Daniel Ward, Ph.D.

Daniel Ward, Ph.D.

Daniel Ward, Ph.D. is an expert in operational technology and critical infrastructure security with decades of experience at the intersection of industrial systems and national security.

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The Cybersecurity Fear Machine

Paperback $20.00 · ISBN 978-1-972842-01-0