Eric O'Neill

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"The spy is always in the worst possible place." This was the first lesson Eric O'Neill would be taught by his supervisor, veteran agent Robert Hanssen, when he began working at the FBI's newly created Information Assurance Section; he called it "Hanssen's law." It was early 2001, the world on the cusp of the digital revolution, and this two-man division was tasked with modernizing the FBI's woefully out-of-date and inadequate cybersecurity system-or so it seemed. In reality, O'Neill knew just how true "Hanssen's law" really was: his new boss was a spy, and he was most definitely in the worst possible place, with unhindered access to some of the FBI's most classified and highly sensitive intelligence. The agency suspected that Hanssen had spent the past twenty years acting as a Russian mole, sharing everything from details about U.S. weapons systems to the names and identities of American operatives. At twenty-six years old, O'Neill was recruited for the case of a lifetime, tasked with spying on a master spy and bringing to justice one of the most damaging double agents in American history.
In GRAY DAY: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy (Crown; March 26, 2019), O'Neill takes readers into the high-stakes, pressure-packed Room 9930, where he spends each day alone with Hanssen. O'Neill is subjected to Hanssen's over-sized ego and bursts of rage, but also witnesses the brilliant maneuverings and manipulations he has used for years to stay one step ahead of the FBI. Finding O'Neill to be an apt pupil, Hanssen begins to teach him the game of spy craft, exposing the flaws and failures of the agency's systems, which he's been able to exploit for years. What Hanssen could not have anticipated, however, was just how much attention his new student was paying.
In GRAY DAY, O'Neill recounts those fateful months spent with Hanssen in an edge-of-your seat, tension-packed narrative that rivals the greatest spy novels and films. A dramatic tale of spy vs. spy, GRAY DAY is also a cautionary tale that pulls back the curtain on the world of cyber espionage. As recent events have made painfully clear-from the Equifax breach, to the global WannaCry pandemic, to the hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election-cyber espionage is one of the greatest threats we face when it comes to national, corporate, and personal security. In GRAY DAY, O'Neill shows us what Hanssen's law-"The spy is always in the worst possible place"-can teach us about how to keep our information safe in an increasingly digital world.