Customer Reviews

Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools

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This is basically a book about intrusion detection using all open source tools. It starts with an introductory chapter that explains the problem of defining an intrusion and why it is becoming more and more of a problem. It follows up with a chapter on network traffic analysis including packet sniffing and using tcpdump and ethereal. Then comes the meat of the text - installing Snort. Of course to really understand how to use Snort you have to understand how attacks occur and the common methods used. The authors provide a really nice chapter on this subject. After that come five chapters on configuring, deploying, and managing Snort rules, intrusion prevention strategies, and tuning. Once Snort is up and running the authors examine the use of ACID and SnortCenter as Snort IDS management consoles. Either of these products drastically decreases the burden of analyzing what has happened and is happening on the intrusion detection forefront. The book ends with additional tools for Snort IDS management and implementation strategies for high-bandwidth situations.

There are other very good books on Snort but one of the things that makes this one particularly valuable is that it also looks at other open source tools and provides a good basic background on intrusion detection theory. Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools is highly recommended for those in charge of intrusion detection and prevention in a network environment and planning to implement a system their self.

Welcome to Snort! More broadly, this book works well as a practical explanation of the general field of Intrusion Detection Systems. Key affiliated tools are covered, like tcpdump and Ethereal. Which are also free and open source, just like Snort. There is a general and I think understandable bias in this book towards such tools. The authors claim, and you must have heard this before, that such tools are often more likely to be bug free and mature than proprietary tools.

If you work your way through the chapters, then you can get a good education in the main ideas like setting up prevention strategies and how to look for evidence of attacks. Instantiated via using Snort. But if you're smart, you can generalise this. Plus, keep an eye out for any useful techniques that Snort currently lacks. If you find these, perhaps you can build a high value tool off them? Don't take Snort as the last word in these matters.

Up to this point, I've only use simple firewalls for my home network. Not that I think there's anything really worth hacking on my home network, but I thought I'd spend a little time learning about intrusion detection. This book is great for several reasons. First, it is well put together and easy to follow. Second, it describes in detail the open source project Snort. Finally, it satisfied my curiosity about IDS (Intrusion detection systems) - I'm not an expert, but I now understand the concepts.

Even though the book did not mention OS X specifically, it was easy to get snort compiled and installed on my Mac. There were a few tweaks I had to do, but if you're familiar with "configure; make; make install", it should be a snap. (Likewise, fink or darwinports can get you going with Snort as well). Any other flavor of Unix/Linux would be that much easier to install.

Beyond just describing how to install and configure Snort, the book does go into some detail about how networks are attacked and how Snort goes about alerting you to possible intrusive behavior. There are also numerous reference to web sites and other books to find more information. It also goes into detail on various other tools that augment and complement Snort.

Very well done.

O'Reilly's "Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools" by Cox and Greg is a practical book that succinctly describes the basic functionality and utility of implanting Snort. The book does an excellent job at discussing the different configuration parameters when deploying Snort.

In particular, I was impressed by:
* Page 35 - A 5-page list detailing the different options available via the command-line.
* Page 69 - Details some of the techniques used to evade IDSs.
* Chapter 5's description of preprocessor configurations was a valuable tool to a newbie of UNIX.
* Chapter 10 description of ACID as a Snort IDS Management Console.

The only area I wish the authors expanded on was in Chapter 7 "Creating Your Own Rules". This area can easily be supplemented from documentation on the web.

The book has a natural bias toward elevating open source tools (I am fan of open source tools). Appreciating that fact, I must admit I have used this book when I have been describing the value of open source tools. Overall, I think "Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools" is a valuable addition to anyone's Snort arsenal.

I give this book 4 pings out of 5:
!!!.!

O'reilly's books are awesome... and this is no different. Anything and everything on how to use SNORT properly is listed here. Rules and syntax are easy to implement. One downside comment; the title mentions SNORT and IDS tools; it dealt with SNORT heavily, and I didn't get a good coverage of "other" IDS tools... maybe O'reilly has something else in the works?

A well-rounded treatment of Snort and IDS in general. The refresher on packet structure is welcome and necessary. While there is a lot of good free material on Snort out on the net, this book is a positive addition to the library for anyone who works with intrusion detection systems, specifically Snort.

This book is more than a great overview of Intrusion Detection and Defense in Depth using Snort. The authors provide details on packet inspection, configuring Snort, rulesets, and tuning. Then, they take the reader through implementation procedures for Snort with essential tools that make it more useful, MYSQL and ACID. Although the implementation section was limited to the Linux environment, a determined networker can, armed with this book and Internet access, make Snort work in Windows. The authors assume the reader has a knowledge of networking protocols.

The information I wanted when I bought this book is there. This book will be like my Unix in a Nut Shell book. Heavily used, heavily book marked, with dog eared pages as I keep going back to various sections for additional information.

That is the sign of a good book. Well used.

Dan

Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools is just a great book.

Don't even try to use Snort without reading this book first.