Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Security, Audit, and Control (Microsoft Technical Reference)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book does not present any new information for the seasoned NT security administrator nor does it give you secret recipes for security. What it does pretty darn well is to collect the most current and concise list of security configuration steps under one cover. It's also very well written and has a professional feel to it. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because I was personally exposed to the information in the last 3 years via one source or another. It's value as a reference book is extremely high. Money well spent.

As an audit and security veteran of 15 years, I have seen many resources - this book ranks as one of the best I've seen for the NT environment. Loaded with helpful hints, etc.

Read through this book rather quickly, seen most of this before in SANS; not a good idea to breeze through if you have not seen this before. This is a very good book, alot of tools exists today which does this but the book tells the registry locations and gives explanations. However if you attended a recent SANS Securing NT, this book might not be for you.

I am an NT admin by profession. This is the first NT security text I have read which I could recommend without reservation. If you ever get audited, particularly by PriceWaterhouse, this is their guide.

For the last last few years, I have concentrated on NT auditing. I have read about 6 books on NT security, attended many security conferences, including SANS. I also search the net and study using MS tutorial courses. I attended 5 Microsoft NT courses. (It is hard work trying to find all those little bits of information.) I regard this book as the easiest one to start anyone off on this topic and the best for auditors. It is written for auditors (and not sysadmins). It is unfortunately out-of-date every time it is released (the last version for NT 3.51 as well), but that is not their fault, rather the fault of NT with its numerous security bugs that keep on coming (Watch out for SP7). It is still a good reference and the only audit book. Get "Hacking Exposed" as a companion to provide the updating info, and for the latest on NT security holes in working details.

If your an NT 4.0 Admin then buy a copy of this book used (its cheap enough). For the money its an excellent resource. I purchased it full price and found that it was somewhat useful in instituting security polices for the Web servers I was responsible for. You should also consider getting some of the Hacker expliotation books just to understand more of the mindset of how a Hacker attacks.