20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
birds eye view...with a sufficient level of detail., October 6, 2009
This review is from: Hacking: The Next Generation (Animal Guide) (Paperback)
I'm always skeptical about books that propose to cover such a vast spectrum of subjects, the book in question however does a wonderful job at explaining in plain english what is happening behind an attack, it unveils the possible motives and end result, and I personally found it a superb manuscript on what is happening today in the fields of hacking and social engineering.
On a more technical side it covers XSS attacks and blended exploits, again in plain english. Though the authors also throw some code in there to keep the techiest of us entertained, personally I found the inclusion of code somewhat unnecessary. 'Plain english' would suffice especially because I found that this would otherwise be the perfect book to hand to someone less techy who wants to know what is happening out there in the wild and to some extent what they need to look out for if they intend to be security conscious. Could they ignore the code? sure! will they? depends on the individual and his/her aversion to programming. It still keeps its five stars though, I cant fault a book for having too much information. The book also covers phishing attacks, that chapter was a very worth wile read. I hold no interest or curiosity in phishing attacks and after reading it I was surprised on what I had learned.
The chapters on social engineering and information gathering were very interesting as well. The authors made a clear effort to mention current online tools that attackers can use to acquire information on a target (may that be a person or a corporate entity) and go into deeper detail on how such an attack can develop into face to face contact with a target. The way the book is written makes it feel like a story, like one attack unfolds into another and that is really why this book is such good fun to read.
If there's something I can fault in this book its really its life span. You have to get it now for it to matter. In 2 years time all this will be old, stale news and at the speed things change in the IT/IS world its really quite inevitable. Social engineering will always be social engineering but the tools used to gather information will surely change.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book that deals with many new attack vectors you may not have considered..., October 17, 2009
This review is from: Hacking: The Next Generation (Animal Guide) (Paperback)
I've read my share of hacking books over the years, and usually most of the books focus on the same topics... pointer overflows, brute force password hacks, etc. But with all the movement towards Web 2.0, the Cloud, and social networks, is it possible that hacking vectors have shifted somewhat into areas we don't normally worry about? After reading Hacking: The Next Generation by Nitesh Dhanjani, Billy Rios, and Brett Hardin, the answer is definitely yes. There's a whole new series of things to worry about, both from a corporate and a personal level.
Contents:
Intelligence Gathering: Peering Through the Windows to Your Organization
Inside-Out Attacks: The Attacker Is the Insider
The Way It Works: There Is No Patch
Blended Threats: When Applications Exploit Each Other
Cloud Insecurity: Sharing the Cloud with Your Enemy
Abusing Mobile Devices: Targeting Your Mobile Workforce
Infiltrating the Phishing Underground: Learning from Online Criminals?
Influencing Your Victims: Do What We Tell You, Please
Hacking Executives: Can Your CEO Spot a Targeted Attack?
Case Studies: Different Perspectives
Chapter 2 Source Code Samples
Cache_Snoop.pl
Index
Yes, the deeply technical hacks still exist, the ones that rely on badly coded software to gain privileges you aren't granted. But in some ways, the hacks are getting easier, or at least more available to those who are not hardcore techheads. Take for instance, blended threats. This is an interesting concepts that shows how interconnected software environments have become. In the example they use, Microsoft had a minor vulnerability in XP and Vista, while Apple had a minor vulnerability in their Safari browser. Both vendors didn't feel that either item was critical. That changed (at least for Microsoft) when someone used the behavior in Safari running on Windows to place a dll file on the Windows desktop. This dll file was then used by IE7 when starting up, overriding the use of the real dll in the proper Window directories. You can imagine how this would lead to "undesirable consequences."
And if that's not enough, imagine the potential of hacks in the Cloud. The authors show how one could hack an administration console to a Cloud provider, allowing someone to modify a number of parameters of a Cloud account. Or... if your attack target runs on the Cloud and is charged based on bandwidth and CPU, imagine what you could do to this target if you were to launch a distributed denial of service attack using the Cloud as the attacking client. The resources are almost limitless, and the target will get hit with charges that escalate at an incredible rate. Not a comforting thought if you've trusted your business to "the Cloud"...
I also noticed that more and more, hacking is not so much about taking over hardware as it is about getting a pipeline to timely information. For instance, more and more people are using shared and public calendars to manage their daily work. It's not uncommon to be able to search and find conference call details that aren't removed from the entry. If you find this info, it's very possible that you can call in to the number, remain on mute, and pick up vital information that can be of value to you or other companies. This type of hack isn't technical in the least. It's just a mix of Google searching and ignorant/non-cautious users.
I'd really recommend Hacking: The Next Generation to my fellow techies. More important than learning new ways to mess with each other's minds, it will expose you to a number of new attack vectors that you may not have considered. And in most cases, simple awareness of those new vectors is enough to allow you to start to defend against them.
Disclosure:
Obtained From: Publisher
Payment: Free
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book!, December 11, 2009
This review is from: Hacking: The Next Generation (Animal Guide) (Paperback)
This is a great read if you are interested in understanding what types of things make your systems and identity vulnerable to hacking. I basically read it cover to cover in a single sitting, I could not put it down. This is not a book that tells you how to secure your systems against various threats, but rather explains in detail how threats arise and how they are exploited. If you are a software professional interested in building secure systems or just interested in how to protect yourself online I highly recommend this book.
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