InfoSec Career Hacking: Sell Your Skillz, Not Your Soul [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Aaron W. Bayles (Author), Chris Hurley (Author), Johnny Long (Author), Ed Brindley (Author), James C. Foster (Author), Christopher W. Klaus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

"InfoSec Career Hacking" starts out by describing the many, different InfoSec careers available including Security Engineer, Security Analyst, Penetration Tester, Auditor, Security Administrator, Programmer, and Security Program Manager. The particular skills required by each of these jobs will be described in detail, allowing the reader to identify the most appropriate career choice for them.

Next, the book describes how the reader can build his own test laboratory to further enhance his existing skills and begin to learn new skills and techniques. The authors also provide keen insight on how to develop the requisite soft skills to migrate form the hacker to corporate world.

* The InfoSec job market will experience explosive growth over the next five years, and many candidates for these positions will come from thriving, hacker communities

* Teaches these hackers how to build their own test networks to develop their skills to appeal to corporations and government agencies

* Provides specific instructions for developing time, management, and personal skills to build a successful InfoSec career

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chris Hurley is a Senior Penetration Tester in the Washington, DC area. He has more than 10 years of experience performing penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and general INFOSEC grunt work. He is the founder of the WorldWide WarDrive, a four-year project to assess the security posture of wireless networks deployed throughout the world. Chris was also the original organizer of the DEF CON WarDriving contest. He is the lead author of WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend (Syngress Publishing, ISBN: 19318360305). He has contributed to several other Syngress publications, including Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit (ISBN: 1-5974490210), Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity (ISBN: 1597490067), InfoSec Career Hacking (ISBN: 1597490113), and OS X for Hackers at Heart (ISBN: 1597490407). He has a BS from Angelo State University in Computer Science and a whole bunch of certifications to make himself feel important.

Johnny Long is a Christian by grace, a professional hacker by trade, a pirate by blood, a ninja in training, a security researcher and author. He can be found lurking at his website (http://johnny.ihackstuff.com). He is the founder of Hackers For Charity(http://ihackcharities.org), an organization that provides hackers with job experience while leveraging their skills for charities that need those skills.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Syngress; 1 edition (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597490113
• ISBN-13: 978-1597490115
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,374,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Overall Good Read..., May 24, 2005

By 

Mark A. Cavey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: InfoSec Career Hacking: Sell Your Skillz, Not Your Soul (Paperback)

I enjoyed reading this book and I kept thinking to myself, "I wished this book would have existed when I tried to break into Information Security/Information Assurance. So far I've had a pretty successful IA career and as I read each chapter of the book I realized that I basically followed almost all of the books suggestions, some by my own plans and some by accident.

This book is definitely authored by an all-star cast so I was excited to crack the seal. I liked the sections on employment opportunities and who's hiring. The brief IA overview was definitely necessary. I was also fond of the Laws of Security content. I've never thought about those laws and how true they really are.

When I get time my friend and I plan to use the Creating an Attack Lab content. It was a good collection of theory and tool descriptions.

Overall this book is a good read and even though I've been in the Information Assurance field for over 8 years now I plan to use it as a reference and to build me an attack lab ASAP.

All IA/Infosec newbies should read this....it could have saved me some stress when I was just a noob!

Mark Cavey, CISSP-ISSAP, IAM, IEM, CHS
Senior Computer Network Defense Engineer

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating approach, could use more meat, July 14, 2005

By 

Stephen Northcutt (Kauai, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: InfoSec Career Hacking: Sell Your Skillz, Not Your Soul (Paperback)

I liked the book, I like the approach, but it falls short of what needs to be done to be a truly useful tool for job hunting. As I read it the burning question in my mind was, would What Color Is Your Parachute be a better tool? I actually pulled my two year old copy of Parachute off the shelf and it is a better tool.

Still the book deserves a flip through if you have a chance to pull it off your neighbor's shelf or check it out from a library. My favorite chapters were 3 and 4, if there is any chance you might be looking for a job, don't miss those.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that's been needed for a while, September 1, 2005

By 

Kevin Beaver (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: InfoSec Career Hacking: Sell Your Skillz, Not Your Soul (Paperback)

Even though the content in this book sways from one end of the information security spectrum to the other reaching the point of identity crisis, I really like its approach. I speak on this topic quite often and I'm finding it's the one area of information security that has remained mostly untouched - yet desperately needed - in this hot field. There are several success-related topics missing, but overall this book is a good read for those looking to take their information security careers to the next level.