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Title: Hackers Beware: The Ultimate Guide to Network Security by Eric Cole ISBN: 0-7357-1009-0 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 13 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (20 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An expert's look at the state of the security arena
Comment: I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I have attended Eric Cole's excellent SANS classes and consider him a professional acquaintance. "Hackers Beware" is a welcome contribution to the security community. Although some of the material is redundant, you're bound to gain new insights on network intrusions by reading this book.
The message of "Hackers Beware" is clear: prevention is preferred, but detection is mandatory. To discover intrusions, one must understand the tools and tactics of the adversary. To this end, "Hackers Beware" devotes chapters to information gathering, spoofing, session hijacking, denial of service, buffer overflows, password security, access preservation, and log cleaning. Some of the material in these chapters is based on the "practicum" required of SANS students.
My favorite section, without doubt, was chapter 17: "Other Types of Attacks." It features many valuable essays by SANS students on BIND NXT exploitation, cookie-based overflows, SNMP enumeration, and other topics.
Publishing student material has its drawbacks, however. "Hackers Beware" is repetitive, a sin given the book's page count (778). Why include yet another explanation of buffer overflows in chapter 14, for example, when a whole chapter (7) already discusses them? (Actually, Brent Hughes' work in chapter 14 is more enlightening!) Furthermore, the "fundamentals" of UNIX and NT chapters are much less informative compared to Ed Skoudis' chapters in "Counter Hack."
I also recommend New Riders help the author overcome his addiction to "three phrase sentences," such as "Now the Internet is very popular, and everyone is using Linux because it is powerful and inexpensive, so the number of people beating on the system is very high." (p. 480.)
Future editions should reduce the number of vulnerabilities described in favor of more thorough explanations of sample exploits. For example, a virtual reprint of cDc's advisory on a NetMeeting weakness teaches me very little; providing background on the coding, system calls, and principles of this exploit is more useful. I would also pare the student-based material down to the essential core, removing generic material discussed elsewhere.
I'd almost buy "Hackers Beware" for chapter 17 alone, so I'm sure security professionals will find many reasons to enjoy this book.
(Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the publisher.)
Rating: 4
Summary: Hacking Exposed...expanded !
Comment: There are four main kinds of computer security books:
1) Books containing large enumerations of known vulnerabilities and attacks.
2) Books covering the theoretical related aspects.
3) Books on computer forensic areas.
4) Some kind of hybrids of two or more of the above.
'Hackers Beware' is a well balanced hybrid of 1) and 2) categories.
I think of it as a sort of Hacking Exposed (the book) enriched with theoretical background and detailed explanations.
In the plus side, this book offers:
- Well structured by kind of attacks and by kind of Operating Systems.
- Well written chapters on Fundamentals of Unix and NT.
- The author, a recognized specialist and SANS' high rated instructor.
- Full of well documented analysis of relevant exploits.
- Discussions (although short) about 'Rootkits', 'Buffer Overflows' and 'Covering the Tracks'.
- Chapter 17, 'Other Types of Attack', specially for the PGP ADK Exploit presentation.
In the minus side:
- As a book relaying on 'current' exploits, it could easily be short-lived. If future additional editions are scheduled (a la Hacking Exposed)...OK, else ...Beware!
- Chapter 18, can be found (updated) in the Internet. Chapters 19 and 20 are just fillers.
I use this book mainly as a reference book for my (undergraduate) students.
Rating: 5
Summary: Finally, a readable book about network security!
Comment: I'll be brief. If you are a layman, and you don't have much expertise in the computer security field, then read this book. "Hackers Beware" does assume some prior general knowledge about networking and software, but anybody who's taken a few courses, or had a bit of on-the-job experience will be able to follow along quite well.
Even better, if you are a business owner, and are worried about the security of your network (and believe me, you should be), then reading this book will give you the added advantage of being able to communicate intelligently with you network security personnel. Further, after having studied this accessible tome, you will be able to discern as to whether your networking people actually know what they are dealing with (sadly, some don't. You know 'em and I know 'em. Yes, I'm refering to the PAPER MCSE's). Being able to speak intelligently with your employees, and put your heads together in solving the formidible problem of network security, will be of limitless benefit to you.
All in all, an understandable, mostly-in-plain-English book that will behoove all who read it.
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Title: Hacker's Challenge 2: Test Your Network Security & Forensic Skills by Mike Schiffman, Bill Pennington, David Pollino, Adam J. O'Donnell ISBN: 0072226307 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 18 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions, Fourth Edition (Hacking Exposed) by Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, George Kurtz ISBN: 0072227427 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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Title: Network Intrusion Detection (3rd Edition) by Stephen Northcutt, Judy Novak ISBN: 0735712654 Publisher: Que Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Internet Security Guidebook: From Planning to Deployment by Juanita Ellis, Tim Speed ISBN: 0122374711 Publisher: Academic Press Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $47.95 |
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Title: Top-Down Network Design by Priscilla Oppenheimer ISBN: 1578700698 Publisher: Cisco Press Pub. Date: 15 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
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