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Author: Chris McNab
ISBN : B0043EWUR0
New from $15.39
Format: PDF, EPUB
You can download Free Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network from 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
There are hundreds--if not thousands--of techniques used to compromise both Windows and Unix-based systems. Malicious code and new exploit scripts are released on a daily basis, and each evolution becomes more and more sophisticated. Keeping up with the myriad of systems used by hackers in the wild is a formidable task, and scrambling to patch each potential vulnerability or address each new attack one-by-one is a bit like emptying the Atlantic with paper cup.
If you're a network administrator, the pressure is on you to defend your systems from attack. But short of devoting your life to becoming a security expert, what can you do to ensure the safety of your mission critical systems? Where do you start?
Using the steps laid out by professional security analysts and consultants to identify and assess risks, Network Security Assessment offers an efficient testing model that an administrator can adopt, refine, and reuse to create proactive defensive strategies to protect their systems from the threats that are out there, as well as those still being developed.
This thorough and insightful guide covers offensive technologies by grouping and analyzing them at a higher level--from both an offensive and defensive standpoint--helping administrators design and deploy networks that are immune to offensive exploits, tools, and scripts. Network administrators who need to develop and implement a security assessment program will find everything they're looking for--a proven, expert-tested methodology on which to base their own comprehensive program--in this time-saving new book.
Direct download links available for Free Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 1769 KB
- Print Length: 400 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
- Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (February 9, 2009)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0043EWUR0
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #646,266 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Free Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network
"Network Security Assessment" (NSA) is the latest in a long line of vulnerability assessment / penetration testing books, stretching back to "Maximum Security" in 1997 and "Hacking Exposed" shortly thereafter. NSA is also the second major security title from O'Reilly this year, soon to be followed by "Network Security Hacks." NSA is a good book with some new material to offer, but don't expect to find deep security insight in this or similar assessment books. NSA begins with the almost obligatory reference to the king of assessment books, "Hacking Exposed" (HE), saying "I leave listings of obscure techniques to behemoth 800-page 'hacking' books." I don't think some of the techniques covered in HE but not NSA are "obscure." Noticably lacking in NSA is coverage of dial-up techniques, wireless insecurities, Novell vulnerabilities, and attacking clients rather than servers. Should NSA receive a second edition, I expect to see the book expand closer to the "behemoth" it seems to deride.
The best chapter by far was ch. 11, where the author with assistance from Michael Thumann takes the reader on a tour of exploiting vulnerable code. The stack diagrams and code snippets were especially helpful and the explanations were clear enough. This sort of material is a solid introduction to some of the techniques found in "Security Warrior." I also liked ch. 14, where the author explains a sample assessment using the tools already introduced. Kudos as well for maintaining an errata page and tool archive on the publisher's Web site.
The advantage NSA has over HE is the variety of tools on hand. I learned of at least a dozen tools not mentioned elsewhere.
[A review of the 2nd EDITION. This review was written on 3 December 2007.]
Over 3 years has elapsed since McNab wrote his first edition. Much of that edition is still valid. Sadly, in a way, because it means that despite the best efforts of that book and others of its ilk, we remain plagued with network attackers and insecure systems.
One of the constants between the editions is the focus on IPv4. Still! IPv6 only gets a glancing mention in the second edition. While everyone recognises that IPv4 will get exhausted of addresses, the transition to v6 still gets postponed. McNab ruminates that this very transition will of its own accord generate compromises. I wish he'd expand on this remark. But maybe there is yet little market reason to do so.
Another thing that does not get mentioned is phishing. In early 2004, it was still a minor threat. It has since blossomed into a chronic problem. But McNab is correct to ignore it, up to a point. He believes, as apparently does most of the IT security field, that phishing is largely a social engineering problem. That it is not a technical problem of patching bugs, per se. Yet viewed properly, phishing is a network attack that uses social engineering, and it is amenable to technical countermeasures that involve, in part, network actions.
I especially favour this edition, for the reasons in the preceding paragraph. In 2004, I and a co-inventor, Marvin Shannon, devised a US Patent Pending against phishing. The second edition of McNab's book came out in November 2007, and by not discussing phishing, it buttresses our claims of non-obviousness, 3 years after our filing.
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[A review of the 1st Edition.