Customer Reviews

Security+ Guide to Networking Security Fundamentals

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

 

 

My instructor uses this as one of two textbooks for the Network Security course, primarily because there is an answer key for the chapter review questions. The book isn't bad, although I find it lightweight in comparison to the other text, Designing Network Security 2nd ed., by Merike Kaeo.

My biggest issue is that the lab material presented is woefully out of date, since this book was published in 2004. The principles of network security do not change radically in two years' time, but software certainly does!

I attend Illinois Institute of Technology, which is unique in that some programs mix graduate students and undergrad students in classes, with the expectation that graduate students perform at a higher level than the undergrads. IIT is also known for the [...], or Interprofessional Projects Program, which brings together students from engineering, science, humanities, business, architecture, psychology, law and design to solve many unique and useful problems.

As you can see, IIT encourages diversity and teamwork. My project team consists of myself (grad student with a good deal of experience) and three undergrads with varying levels of experience.

If one does not have a certain level of PC experience, doing some of the labs in this book without current instructions can be tedious, if not impossible for some people.

The official website has only two downloads for the book. One is a list of errata, dated July 2006. The other maps the textbook content to the LabSim content, which I suspect would be useful only if you purchased that option. My suggestion to the author is that he publish a quarterly update on the website with revisions to the labs in the textbook.

Regardless, I would not advise paying full price for this book, especially since the Security+ exam is going to be revised soon, from what I have been reading.

The 2nd edition of this book is a dramatic improvement over the 1st edition. This edition is written by a new author who appears to have much more experience in the field and has a better grasp of the certification objectives. It includes many important topics that are on the Security+ exam, but not covered in the 1st edition. His explanations are much better, his examples and analogies are well thought out. This is a good book for the classroom, and an OK book for the security novice who just wants to learn on his/her own. Some of the diagrams need improvement- they may confuse the reader and could be simplified. I think it could be organized a little better, but that may just be my personal taste. I was pleased to find very few errors, unlike the first edition, which I lost confidence in after the first couple of chapters.

The lab manual that goes with this book is still disappointing. There are only about 3-4 labs in the lab manual that are useful, the rest is just busywork. Not worth the money. This would be a much better series if the few useful lab exercises were added to the textbook, and the separate lab manual was dropped.

Let me first say I own this book, and have read it cover to cover. It is garbage. A few "key concepts" in the Sec+ exam are barely even covered. In its defense, it is not as dry as many other technical books, but I'd take a dry book with some substance over a interesting book that teaches me nothing. Don't take my word for it though... look at the preceding reviews!
- "Incorrect "facts" and poor organization"
- "Lightweight textbook"(Is that really a plus? So is an empty notebook!)
- "...shouldn't be relied on as the only resource"
- "...only reason I bought this book is because it was for a class, otherwise I would have chosen a different book ...)
- "Not worth the money"

and the list goes on... Find a different book, not too many out there that won't beat this one!

I have only made it to chapter 6 of this book and just glossing over most of it at that and here are some glaring mistakes I have seen so far.

Chapter 6, titled "Web Security", well, let's just look at the chapter summary in the introduction. "Web Security begins by discussing how to protect e-mail systems, the technology most vital to Internet users. The chapter also examines vulnerabilities of the World Wide Web and how to protect Web communications. In addition, this chapter discusses instant messaging and how to harden it." Why are we discussing e-mail and IM in a chapter about Web security? These are both handled by separate protocols and separate applications both client and server side. Why is this worded (and the chapter ordered) to start with and focus on e-mail security?

In the same chapter there is discussion of JavaScript. To quote the book again, "One popular technology used to make dynamic content is JavaScript. Based on the programming language Java, JavaScript is a special program code embedded into an HTML document....The Web browser then executes that code within the browser using the Virtual Machine (VM), which is a Java interpreter." WRONG. JavaScript is not based on Java and has nothing to do with it. Java was developed by Sun. JavaScript was originally developed by Netscape under the name LiveScript when they decided that Java was too heavy for the functionality that they were wanting in an embedded scripting language. Due to bad/confused marketing folks LiveScript was later renamed JavaScript. While JavaScript does execute in a virtual machine, it is not the Java Virtual Machine.

Earlier in the book in the section about hardening servers and services one of the easiest (in many cases, anyway) things to do was left out. Why did the author not mention configuring services to not advertise their exact version? In most Unix/Linux daemons this is as simple as changing one line in the config file for the daemon.

I can only wonder about what I will find as I continue reading and when I read over the book more thoroughly.

I meant to get the 3rd edition but got the 2nd by accident. The second is still a treasure trove of good, useful information and heck, it was only ten bucks so I have no regrets. Also, there are things in the 2nd edition that aren't in the 3rd edition plus the merchant offered good, fast service so I'm happy.

The book arrived in good condition but not in as timely a manner as I am used too. It was still within the projected time period though.

The book was in good condition and was described as I got it. It was also shipped very fast and I received it in a timely manner.

got it used, not so bad, i hope it gonna help me in taking Security + exam

I wish this author would come out with a third edition of the book, since the CompTIA Security+ test that it tracks to has changed twice since this book was published. On the plus side, this book covers more topics than other books for Security+ prep, and helped me to pass the test recently. The book is written in an easy to follow style. I did not use the lab manual, which is a companion volume, so the negative reviews on that do not pertain to the value of this volume to my experience.

This is a pretty good book. I'm taking the course at a Community College and bought the book online since it wasn't available in the bookstore. Material is very thorough in covering subject matter. It is presented in a way that is easy to understand.