Hacking: The Next Generation (Animal Guide) [Paperback]

Nitesh Dhanjani (Author), Billy Rios (Author), Brett Hardin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0596154577 | ISBN-13: 978-0596154578 | Edition: 1

With the advent of rich Internet applications, the explosion of social media, and the increased use of powerful cloud computing infrastructures, a new generation of attackers has added cunning new techniques to its arsenal. For anyone involved in defending an application or a network of systems, Hacking: The Next Generation is one of the few books to identify a variety of emerging attack vectors.

You'll not only find valuable information on new hacks that attempt to exploit technical flaws, you'll also learn how attackers take advantage of individuals via social networking sites, and abuse vulnerabilities in wireless technologies and cloud infrastructures. Written by seasoned Internet security professionals, this book helps you understand the motives and psychology of hackers behind these attacks, enabling you to better prepare and defend against them.

• Learn how "inside out" techniques can poke holes into protected networks
• Understand the new wave of "blended threats" that take advantage of multiple application vulnerabilities to steal corporate data
• Recognize weaknesses in today's powerful cloud infrastructures and how they can be exploited
• Prevent attacks against the mobile workforce and their devices containing valuable data
• Be aware of attacks via social networking sites to obtain confidential information from executives and their assistants
• Get case studies that show how several layers of vulnerabilities can be used to compromise multinational corporations

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nitesh Dhanjani is a well known security researcher, author, and speaker. Dhanjani is currently Senior Manager at a large consulting firm where he advises some of the largest corporations around the world on how to establish enterprise wide information security programs and solutions. Dhanjani is also responsible for evangelizing brand new technology service lines around emerging technologies and trends such as cloud computing and virtualization.

Prior to his current job, Dhanjani was Senior Director of Application Security and Assessments at a major credit bureau where he spearheaded brand new security efforts into enhancing the enterprise SDLC, created a process for performing source code security reviews & Threat Modeling, and managed the Attack & Penetration team.

Dhanjani is the author of "Network Security Tools: Writing, Hacking, and Modifying Security Tools" (O'Reilly) and "HackNotes: Linux and Unix Security" (Osborne McGraw-Hill). He is also a contributing author to "Hacking Exposed 4" (Osborne McGraw-Hill) and "HackNotes: Network Security". Dhanjani has been invited to talk at various information security events such as the Black Hat Briefings, RSA, Hack in the Box, Microsoft Blue Hat, and OSCON.

Dhanjani graduated from Purdue University with both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science.

Dhanjani's personal blog is located at dhanjani.com.

Billy Rios is currently a Security Engineer for Microsoft where he studies emerging risks and cutting edge security attacks and defenses. Before his current role as a Security Engineer, Billy was a Senior Security Consultant for various consulting firms including VeriSign and Ernst and Young. As a consultant, Billy performed network, application, and wireless vulnerability assessments as well as tiger team/full impact risk assessments against numerous clients in the Fortune 500.

Before his life as a consultant, Billy helped defend US Department of Defense networks as an Intrusion Detection Analyst for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and was an active duty Officer in the US Marine Corps (deployed in support of OIF in 2003). Billy s thought leadership includes speaking engagements at numerous security conferences including: Blackhat Briefings, RSA, Microsoft Bluehat, DEFCON, PacSec, HITB, the Annual Symposium on Information Assurance (ASIA), as well as several other security related conferences. Billy holds a Master of Science degree in Information Systems, a Master of Business Administration degree, and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration

Brett Hardin is a Security Research Lead with McAfee. At McAfee, Brett bridges security and business perspectives to aid upper management in understanding security issues. Before joining McAfee, Brett was a penetration tester for Ernst and Young's Advanced Security Center assessing web application and intranet security for Fortune 500 companies.

In addition, Brett also is the author of misc-security.com. A blog dedicated to focusing on security topics from a high-level or business-level perspective.

Brett holds a bachelor of science in Computer Science from California State University at Chico.

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (September 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596154577
• ISBN-13: 978-0596154578
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars birds eye view...with a sufficient level of detail. October 6, 2009

By N. Povoa

Format: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.

23 of 25 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

By Thomas Duff HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format: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

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book! December 11, 2009

By David Chazin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.