Customer Reviews

The Hack-Counter Hack Training Course

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

 

 

This is an excellent tool to help you get started on network security. Skoudis gives excellent short lectures on many topics. Some reviewers don't like this program because they already know what he describes and demonstrates. This is for beginners! You can take a class at a community college or get this training course. I bet you will get your friends right away and show them the demonstration of using ... software to gain information about web sites. The software is on the disk or free on the Internet. If you want to start learning security fast, get this course and his Counter Hack book.

This is a review of a video lecture series targetted at network administrators and people who are looking to start a career in the security field. It will also go down well with people who are pressed for time, as you can handle each section of the course on your own time, something that invariably doesn't happen with a book.

The lecturer, Ed Skoudis, is very well known in the security community and regularly lectures for www.sans.org - one of the premier information security sites on the web. The course consists of two CD's which have videos broken down into different sections, also included on the CDs are all the tools he demonstrates during the lectures, as well as a sample chapter from a book he has recently authored.

If that were not enough, you also get a workbook to go along with the lectures so that you can revise important information and write your own notes alongside the key points.

The whole approach of the CD is very hands-on, which is a refreshing change from the drab texts that we've all poured over at some point or the other. The course starts from scratch and in the introductory lecture, Skoudis walks you through a full installation of both Windows XP and Redhat Linux 7.2 on two separate machines so that you can have your own laboratory to try the tools out.

Whenever he is demonstrating something, the camera focuses right in on his monitor so that you can see exactly what he is typing at each screen. After you've set up the two systems, he talks you through getting them properly networked, and gives you a few tips on the hardware to buy when setting up your lab.

The rest of the lectures cover the five phases an attacker will use to get into your network. Using the laboratory created at the start, he demonstrates different tools an attacker will use at different stages.

This approach is uncannily similar to the Introduction to Security Article we recently published here, and in fact we feel this course and our article complement each other very well. Both break down attacks into the same broad phases :

* Reconnaisance
* Scanning
* Gaining Access
* Maintaining Access
* Covering Tracks

And then get into the details of each phase.

The teaching methodology on this CD is fairly unique:
Skoudis first uses slides to explain the concept behind what the attacker is doing, before firing up the appropriate tool and showing it to you in action, after this he explains how you can secure your network against a tool of this kind.

You will see him use wardialers, portscanners, sniffers, remote access trojans, covert channel systems, rootkits and more. Best of all, you can try out exactly what he is doing using the tools included on the CD, you're not just left with a theoretical concept, you can implement the attack and figure out how to secure yourself against it.

The course is also fairly evenly divided between Windows and Linux, he uses both operating systems to perform different attacks, and often attacks one system from the other. This ensures that the information will be relevant to you no matter which operating system you work with.

All in all this is an excellent primer to network security. Don't go looking for hard core technical details in this one, its targeted at people who understand the basics of networking but want to be shown their way around the complex world that makes up information security.

What you'll get here are solid facts, a lot of tried and tested 'best practices', and a slickly executed demonstration of how real world tools work. Skoudis has a way of illustrating concepts very clearly, if he uses a technical term, he will invariably give a laypersons explanation for it before proceeding.

That said, I would have liked it if he applied the same practical approach that he uses for demonstrating attackers tools to showing how to secure the systems. It would also have been nice if the CD had come bundled with Realplayer (which is required to view the videos).

I thought the different things that were presented were great, but the author spends way to much time on unrelated worthless information such as how to install windows NT, how to install software... He just wastes alot of time and doesn't provide nearly as much content as expected for the price. The author should know that people in the security field aren't beginners and can install software and or NT...I think they claim 6 hours of video, more like 2 hours of information padded with 4 hours of wasted time.

Setup is extremely easy. No need to install lots of EXEs etc. stuffs like other Computer-Based Training (CBT) programs. You can actually just slide in the CD and jump start the course. It's video based. You can sit back and relax to watch Ed Skoudis explaining how the hacking works and how-to counter them via his video and tools demo. This package does come with some goodies hacking tools in the CD ROM, both Windows and Linux based. Content-wise is pretty good but short. It covers basic technique for information gathering, buffer overflow attack, protocol sniffer & spoofing, etc. Overall, it is highly recommended. Hope Ed will publish more advanced Hack Counter-Hack series of CBT in future.

This training course is excellent for those who take the time to do everything in this book from cover to cover...lesson by lesson...if you do not know linux you may get into trouble when compiling certain required modules only to find out that there were compilation errors suggesting missing symbolic links and or missing libraries e.g. GTK which then have to be downloaded and installed...too much time was spent on the elementary and not enough on the advanced...overall excellent.

I am fairly new to the security field but carry over a background of administration and support. I found this to be of little use to the stuff I have already found on the net in only 2 weeks. At this price it is way to expensive. Also recommendation for later editions is more focus on the actual demonstrations and put in some scenarios and NOT just watching someone sit there and talk. I don't care how many hours of video there is, when its 80% power point slides and someone talking its just padding.

If you read carefully the Editorial Reviews, you'll find yourself wondering if all the claims are not too good to be true.
Well believe me, the training course lives up to all the claims.
Easy to use, it runs flawlessly, with wonderful animation and explanations (hey, remember the instructor is Ed Skoudis).
Works both for Windows and Linux boxes, with very modest requirements to install 'the test Lab'.

A lot of tools are included to perform the exercises, but if you prefer you can just 'watch' how things go on.

By the way, it really covers the five phases of hacking: reconnaissance, scanning, gaining access, maintaining access, and preventing detection. Every phase is full detailed and in such an easy way, that even a beginner could understand 'Stack Overflow' in minutes !!.

At its price is really a BARGAIN.

Buy and enjoy it.

The Hack-Counter Hack training course is especially targeted for those wanting to cover some essential (hands-on!) security techniques in the Windows/Linux based environments. Ed Skoudis does deliver with this 4 hour video-training kit.

He's like a personal instructor, walking you through building an analysis laboratory and then through the 5 stages of the hacker attack: reconnaissance, scanning, gaining access, maintaining access and covering tracks. In the process you get to use nifty networking tools such as Sam Spade, THC-Scan, Nessus, Netcat; allowing you to see their use from both a security and hacking perspective.

The bottom line of all this is to understand and perform REAL attacks, - that is, see how and why the hacker does it - and thus you'll learn the best countermeasures you must take in order to protect your network.

With quite a bit of experience in networking and security, I bought this on something of a lark. just to see how it was done and what was presented. I would call it a security *survey* class. It assumes a certain base of knowledge with both Windows and Linux which is fine. The information when presented is clear enough but not quite enough detail for someone with good working knowledge already. But, even with my level of knowledge, I found a few new things to learn. The nice thing about this type of presentation is it's a great way to get you off your butt and actually try of the utilities. In my case, I also fired up my sniffer and got some nice trace files of various attacks, scans and other nasties. It's a controlled way to do this, the files are clean and you dont worry about something hidden being inside the file which can be the case just downloading this stuff from the web.

I really disliked having to install RealAudio back on my system just to play the files, I would have liked to see a choice between Windows Media, RealAudio and QuickTime (my personal choice). The supplemental material is very weak. It is just a hardcopy of the slides used in the videos. I had expected more detailed notes on the hardcopy.

But for the price, it's a deal for the newbie security minded administrator or for someone wanting to learn about some tools used for both good and nefarious reasons. Beats shelling out 1-2K for a 1 day seminar for the same info.

The course reviews all important aspects of Attack & Penetration techniques and way to protect from them; it does not cover complex or advanced techniques but the information presented is clear, well documented and the exercises and the tools have been adequately selected.

This 5 hours course based on multimedia presentations (2 CDs, including tools) and a workbook will show you in practice how to get in and how to close the door to your systems.

Good training option for network/system adminsitrators, IT specialists and information security profesionals that want to learn or complement their knowledge of network attacks.