Customer Reviews

Dissecting the Hack: The F0rb1dd3n Network

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me get this out of the way: If books could be reviewed as "first effort" this would be a five/five. For a really ambitious book out of the gate it does a decent job of hitting tons of domains from multiple angles to inform, excite, and influence the thought processes of the reader.

To be even more honest had I thumbed through this book before buying it I would not have bought it. A lot of alarms can go off when you see pictures of vendor equipment, tables of network services, and a touch of conspiracy theory in places. Not that those things are inherently bad but it's only a 400 page tome so that's a lot of real estate to be worried about misusing. The authors use those pages as well as can be expected and in a way that even the most jaded readers should be able to ~respect~ if not always appreciate.

I'm not being hard on this book, trust me. It's now the third book, along with Silence on the Wire, and Anderson's Security Engineering, I expect all newer ITSec professionals to read early and often. I don't judge a non-textbook by the accuracy or timeliness of every statement. Or the quality of the story telling or case studied. I judge these types of books by their ability to affect ~thought processes~, ~perspective~, and ~risk analysis~... and I think this book is a winner on all three counts. It is all about influencing thought, not hand-feeding PRECISE EXACTING and ultimately useless step-by-step hacks.

Solid 4/4.5 star on any scale and a 5/5 for a new set of authors. I hope the editors and publisher give them the opportunity to add about 120/150 pages and build a community. One last note, the books and resources noted within this book are good stand-up lists and should not be overlooked either. The single paragraph stories from the web or people profiles are not to be skipped over.

Very interesting approach to a security/hacker book. Not your usual "manual" that becomes obsolete after less than a year after being published (check out how many editions there are for "hacking 101" books). This book takes the reader through a sci-fi novel that is not really sci-fi... All the techniques (and they should be regarded as such - techniques rather than a specific tool or application) are real, and the examples in the 2nd part of the book (the reference) are up-to-date and easy on the reader.

I would highly recommend giving this book to anyone who has anything to do with corporate information in order to help them speak the same language without scaring them with geek/tech/whiz terminology. Every "hack" in the book - from the social engineering ones, through the software and physical hacks are real and clearly explained.

What not to expect: this isn't a reference manual for how to break things. This is not a technical manual of any kind. This is not a "how to become a penetration tester" book (and don't buy books that claim to make you one).

Dissecting the Hack describes information security in a unique perspective which was quite intriguing. The book is divided into two parts, the F0rbidd3n and Security Threats Are Real (STAR). The F0rbidd3n part is a fictional story of displaying the offensive and defensive mechanisms of network security through a group of knowledgeable teen hackers and black hat hackers. In addition, describing the culture and motives of each side. The story goes through a wide variety of realistic corporate and personal network security attacks and each attack has a reference to the second part of the book. The second part, STAR, is divided into its own chapters going through the author's methodology for penetration testing. Each chapter references a part in the F0rbidd3n fictional story and gives a more detailed analysis on the possibility of the attack. However, it does not give a "how-to" explanation but references books, tools, or news events.

I certainly enjoyed reading the F0rbidd3n part of the book and the format of the two parts. The second part, STAR, was rather basic. I would assume anyone with intermediate knowledge or above of information security would have the same feeling. I would definitely recommend this book to a beginner or someone wanting to get an idea of information security and the effects of being vulnerable.