Customer Reviews

SANS GIAC Certification: Security Essentials Toolkit (GSEC)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you don't have any security background then this book is a good place to start. Be ready, however, for most of the links to be out of date (the book was published in 2002). This can be circumvented by a little help from Google to find the utilities you need for the exercises. There are also a few inaccuracies in the syntax provided. These can be resolved with help from "man" (i.e. 'man ipchains') or the help for the particular utility.

What do you say when you're given the answers to all those questions you've been trying to answer for so long....?

The Security Essentials Handbook may be the first definitive guide that allows that feeling to be realised.

Where most security books cover concepts or ideas (tools or hacks), this one finally breaks the barrier between the text and hands on experience. Written as an addition to the SANS Security Essentials course and GSEC certification, it allows the reader to learn, experience and understand the logic, tools and methods involved in IT security from both sides of the fence - thus creating a better security professional.

Covering points of view from Windows, Linux and Unix camps it gives a thorough grounding to the most commonly used tools in todays security defense and breaches. Taking the reader through a concise and methodical approach it teaches and explains the theory, configuration and use of each tool, how to use it to find vunerabilities in your network and defend your network from it's use. It then goes further to explain the use of firewalls, security policies, network security and design, secure comunication (encryption) and a breakdown of both Windows and Unix system security with the aim of creating a Hardened (secure) system.

Written by Eric Cole, Matthew Newfield and John M. Millican, all long time security experts and either certified with or involved in the creation of the certification/courses that SANS offer you could have no better guides through the journey this book takes you on. A thing not to miss is the fact that it's SANS certified which adds credit to it's release, invaluable for the hands on skills needed to aim for the GSEC certification.

As a network/security professional I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the what's & hows of network/IT security. I'd recommend it just as much to any security team or professional as an "on the desk" reference for every day use. An invaluable tool, reference and teacher for those willing to delve deep and take the time to read (and play....).

Tired and disappointed for buying useless 'certification books' ?
Good News, this one is really useful!

I bought it to use as a guide to create Security Labs for my students (local university). To be honest, I had some doubts (too much pure-hype experiences), but when browsed the book for the first time, I was quite impressed by the diversity and thorough treatment of several security tools and scenarios.
Please note that ours, are high level courses, a lot harder than CISSP regular ones. Despite of this, I could assemble several complex Labs, just merging diverse experiences suggested (an explained) in the book.

Whichever your goal, this book will really help you to learn about Network Security, leading you ('hands on') through real world (and no-nonsense) experiences.

Buy it, you won't be disappointed !

This is *the* authoritative text for those who are new to security or wish to enhance their existing security knowledge. The hands-on, exercise driven approach is extremely effective at teaching the material. I have seen John Millican speak at SANS and have always been impressed with his ability to dive deep into security issues while explaining it simply and elegantly. This book is particularly helpful because of the broad range of tools it covers, and the multi-OS perspective that it takes on the matter.

A must-have for those who are serious about learning security.

This book presents some welcome hands on exercises to learn about security. However, it is very clear that at no time did anyone sit down with the book and actually try out the exercises before the book was published. The result is that many of the exercises simply do not work as written and much time is spent simply troubleshooting the steps.

Apart from the poor quality control of this book, it lacks good solid explanations to accompany most of them. Like many such exercise-oriented book the minimal level of explanations leaves one feeling that they are merely following a recipe in a cookbook.

In summary, while the book offers something that is missing in the marketplace, it seems that is was rushed into print with little quality control. Unfortunately there are no errata sheets available from the publisher.

This is a great book to dive into if you are new to security or interested in learning more about Infomation security tools. It is the only book that I have come across that provides hands on step by step instructions. This book goes into a good amount of detail on how to configure and use 80% or more of the tools available in the free world. The information is also presented in a very responsible manner giving the reader an understanding of any potential risks associated with using some of these tools and what the user should do prior to usage. It's a must have if you are interested in learning how to setup and use tools such as snort, nmap, nessus, ethereal, and many more.

The Security Essentials Toolkit is a book that is very easy to pick up and read, and concentrates on the practical elements of the GIAC SANS GSEC exam that differentiate it from the other major vendor neutral certifications (such as the SSCP and Security+). While the Security+ exam may discuss the fact that "Viruses are bad" and review the different types of malware, the GSEC also looks at HOW to detect, avoid, block and/or remove such exploits.

This text was originally published in 2002, and recently celebrated its 5th birthday. However, I would argue that this is not as critical as it may first appear to be. The entire thrust of this book is to encourage you to download, install and experiment with these tools - this is not so much a Textbook, but rather a Lab Guide / Workbook. Although this book includes the vast majority of the tools that you require to sit this exam, it should be noted that the GSEC curriculum is revised regularly, and consequently, this text should be considered an effective starting point - not an all-inclusive text.

Because some of these labs entail installing and running applications that would often breach company policies (port scans, root kits, trojan horses, key loggers and the like), warning are scattered liberally throughout the book to ensure that you have the written permission of the appropriate department before performing any of these steps on your company network - and it's a warning that really must be heeded ... if you're studying for this sort of certification, you must start to understand the requirement for creating such policies, because in the long run, you'll probably be creating the policies for your minions colleagues!

In some environments, setting up these labs may be difficult, as many companies will have web filters that could well block some of these things from being downloaded; a CD with these tools would be a welcome addition to the toolkit.

I would consider this title to be essential reading for anyone considering studying not only the GSEC certification, but for any practical introduction to Information Security / Computer Security (such as the Security+ and SSCP certifications, to name just a selection). However, this should be one of several study texts - it is not a complete exam preparation guide (but doesn't claim to be either).

This book is basically a lab/excersize book - which is great considering the GSEC tests things you should learn hands-on. However, I found that NONE of the URLs work anymore (6/2009). The book also caters to Windows 2000 and Red Hat 7.2. What about XP and other flavors of Linux such as Fedora?

It would be nice if the publisher included a CD with the book with all the malware & tools - so you can just simply load them onto your test machine.

I have had Amazon Prime for 2 years, buy tons of items - first review ever. The info in this book is no longer relevant - skip it. It has all exercises - like if you've ever taken technical training in a classroom where you do one exercise after another.

Chapter 13 Network Design - Many tools are available to draw networks, we will use Cisco Config Maker. Dead link - Google Cisco Config Maker - looks like they dropped it ten years ago. Nothing on network design, the rest of the chapter is screen shots of the install, click this, make a server, click yes, click next...etc.

The chapter on locking down Microsoft IIS is for version 4 - version 7 is current now in 2012. It is all screen shots and exercises from 2002 era software. I am a current CISSP, and buy tons of books with prime, in engineering grad school - this is the only non-recommendation ever. Can't believe it is still being sold, nice book in 2002 - not 2012.

Several years ago, I was tasked with teaching a two-course networking sequence on very short notice. I was also not given a great deal of assistance in terms of money for new equipment or software, so any software tools would have to be freeware. Fortunately, I had a copy of this book, which contains a series of 56 exercises in computer network security. Most rely on tools that are either free or available free for a trial period. Furthermore, many of the exercises require significant knowledge of networking principles, so I was able to create laboratory exercises that tested networking knowledge although they were focused on security.
I did not use this book as a text, it pointed me towards the appropriate tools and their location, which I downloaded and then worked through to write my own lab exercises. This allowed me to overcome the inexperience that I had concerning some of the principles needed to use and understand the tools. However, this book certainly could have been used as a text, although the proper role would be to use it as a supplemental text rather than a primary one.