Download Network Security Assessment Know Your Network Chris McNab 0636920006114 Books
Download As PDF : Network Security Assessment Know Your Network Chris McNab 0636920006114 Books
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.
Download Network Security Assessment Know Your Network Chris McNab 0636920006114 Books
"Recently I published a review of "Security Assessment - Case Studies for Implementing The NSA IAM". In other reviews of this book, one person was upset that it did not focus on technical aspects of security assessments, but this person missed the point of that book. What this person should have read, in addition to that book, is Network Security Assessment (Chris McNab, O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2004, 371 Pages). This book provides a technical deep dive into security assessments to complement Security Assessment.
Whenever I read a new book, I hope to learn something new that I did not know before. This book did not disappoint me as very early on the author presents an overview of assessment standards. In addition to the NSA IAM covered last night, this book offers an overview of CSEG Check, which is the British Standard to evaluate and accredit security testing teams in the UK to do government work. The author also recognizes the three levels of assessment in the NSA IAM and clearly states that this book only covers the assessment and Red Team levels, as these are the nuts and bolts that take place on the project. This recognition is what makes this book the perfect complement to Security Assessment.
This book is not for managers and sales people, it is for the people who need to do the actual assessments. The book provides detailed technical information on tools, shows how to test services, application testing and more. Now, this is not a book I run to excited to read for readings sake, but it is a reference that I can use to identify tools and tasks my teams may need to undertake or if I need to provide an independent review of a proposal for a client.
The author also provides a number of helpful tips for when to use and not use systems in a networked environment, which may be useful for practitioners. He also provides a number of mitigation strategies depending on what is being tested.
Who Should Read This Book
If you do not have a desire or need to get into technical nitty-gritty details, this book is not for you. If you want a reference book for proposal development for your day-today job, this might be an ideal reference for you. But do not go into it expecting anything outside of the purely technical realm. You will end up frustrated and disappointed. The book for you is "Security Assessment - Case Studies for Implementing The NSA IAM".
Scorecard
Birdie on a long par 5 (Good book, but nothing that really jumped out and grabbed my attention)"
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Network Security Assessment Know Your Network Chris McNab 0636920006114 Books Reviews :
Network Security Assessment Know Your Network Chris McNab 0636920006114 Books Reviews
- Recently I published a review of "Security Assessment - Case Studies for Implementing The NSA IAM". In other reviews of this book, one person was upset that it did not focus on technical aspects of security assessments, but this person missed the point of that book. What this person should have read, in addition to that book, is Network Security Assessment (Chris McNab, O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2004, 371 Pages). This book provides a technical deep dive into security assessments to complement Security Assessment.
Whenever I read a new book, I hope to learn something new that I did not know before. This book did not disappoint me as very early on the author presents an overview of assessment standards. In addition to the NSA IAM covered last night, this book offers an overview of CSEG Check, which is the British Standard to evaluate and accredit security testing teams in the UK to do government work. The author also recognizes the three levels of assessment in the NSA IAM and clearly states that this book only covers the assessment and Red Team levels, as these are the nuts and bolts that take place on the project. This recognition is what makes this book the perfect complement to Security Assessment.
This book is not for managers and sales people, it is for the people who need to do the actual assessments. The book provides detailed technical information on tools, shows how to test services, application testing and more. Now, this is not a book I run to excited to read for readings sake, but it is a reference that I can use to identify tools and tasks my teams may need to undertake or if I need to provide an independent review of a proposal for a client.
The author also provides a number of helpful tips for when to use and not use systems in a networked environment, which may be useful for practitioners. He also provides a number of mitigation strategies depending on what is being tested.
Who Should Read This Book
If you do not have a desire or need to get into technical nitty-gritty details, this book is not for you. If you want a reference book for proposal development for your day-today job, this might be an ideal reference for you. But do not go into it expecting anything outside of the purely technical realm. You will end up frustrated and disappointed. The book for you is "Security Assessment - Case Studies for Implementing The NSA IAM".
Scorecard
Birdie on a long par 5 (Good book, but nothing that really jumped out and grabbed my attention) - [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. This review was written on 3 April 2004.]
A logically very systematic delineation of ways that your system could be attacked over the Internet. There are standard ways to access your computer like rlogin, telnet, ssh and ftp. But each implementation of these faces the risk that an error was made in its coding, which might then be found and exploited by a cracker. Plus, since the advent of the Web, there are Web services that have not checked for the stereotypical but very real case of buffer overflow in submitted input over the network.
McNab describes all these, and more. But perhaps more usefully, his book is not a simple recital of implementation versions and associated known bugs and available patches. He tries instead to guide the reader into understanding the broad ideas in network access, and using a viewpoint of logically analysing for any weaknesses. Because any static listing of versions and bugs runs the risk of being obsoleted in a few years.
He presents web sites that are good resources for patches or latest versions of key programs. If you are concerned about a specific program, try going straight to it in the book and seeing what advice he offers.
For all the programs he mentions, some prior knowledge of their use would be handy. He gives a succinct description of each, but really he assumes you have already used it. - I've read a heck of a lot of books on security assessments. Some turn into hacking manuals, others turn into windy documents on documenting the process and why each piece of the process is important.
Network Security Assessment talks about the methodology of security assessments, the how of running nmap, for example with specific commands and a discussion of why. I have really appreciated the book for this reason. A methodology in this field is sorely lacking. Everyone seems to have their own (myself included). NSA gave me some added tweaks to my own as well as a few more tools to explore.
Tools, free and commercial, are part of our trade, and they change constantly, so almost any published book that references tools will be seen as out of date quickly. The author makes the effort, however, to discuss tools as wells as examples from the tried and true ones we all know and love.
The author chooses not to include wireless technologies, for which I have to "ding" him; he leaves it to "full-blown penetration testing," and I feel it belongs in any security assessment.
That being said, one of the best I've read recently, and I highly recommend it for what it DOES cover.
