Hacker's Challenge 2: Test Your Network Security & Forensic Skills (Paperback)

by Mike Schiffman (Author), Bill Pennington (Author), David Pollino (Author), Adam J. O'Donnell (Author) "Without a doubt on this fine summer morning, Dante was looking sharp..." (more)
Key Phrases: mitigation complexity, child pid, conduit permit tcp host, Mon Oct, Hacker's Challenge, Test Your Network Security (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Do you have what it takes to keep the bad guys out of your network? Find out with the latest edition of this best-selling book featuring 20+ all new hacking challenges for you to solve. Plus, you'll get in-depth solutions for each, all written by experienced security consultants.

From the Back Cover

"Awesome....Incredibly informative, insightful, as well as a lot of fun to read. Recommended for anyone who values the integrity and security of their network." --Shawn Bracken, Principal Research Engineer, Cenzic, Inc.

Do you have what it takes to keep hackers out of your network? This unique volume tests your computer forensics and response skills with 20 brand-new, real-life security incidents as told by top-tier security experts. In an entertaining and informative style, this book addresses key security topics, including Denial of Service, malicious code, Web application attacks, wireless technologies, insider and outsider attacks, and more. Each challenge unfolds like a chapter from a novel and includes details of the incident--how the break-in was detected, evidence, and background such as log files and network diagrams--and is followed by a series of questions for you to solve. In Part II, you'll find a detailed explanation of exactly what was happening in each incident and the answers to the questioned posed in Part I, along with prevention and mitigation techniques.

Excerpt from "One Thing Leads to Another":

The Challenge: John is the I.T. Manager for a movie company working on the special effects for a hit film.... But the fan site has just posted an unauthorized clip of one of the most anticipated scenes in the movie.... A postproduction team member put the clip on the server but no one accessed it after that, at least not via FTP.... Then it happened again: more footage was released.... The Web master of the fan site supplied the e-mail address from which he received the files. John checked the ssh logs and the Web server logs.... He found an IP address he had not seen before.... He pinged the IP address then checked his arp table to get the machine's MAC address.... He began tracing the cable back to its source: the proxy server, which had not been used in 8 months....

The Solution: After reviewing the log files included in the challenge, propose your assessment: How could the employees have approached the initial investigation differently that may have helped them get to the culprit sooner? What does the lack of evidence in the ftp and ssh logs reveal? Was John's method of tracking down the proxy server the best method? What is the best solution to solve the vulnerability? Then, turn to the experts' answers to find out what really happened.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 2nd edition (December 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072226307
• ISBN-13: 978-0072226300
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #617,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Always entertaining, always educational, January 11, 2003

By	Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity.com" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I read and reviewed the original "Hacker's Challenge" in Nov 01, and gave that book four stars. Mike Schiffman and crew have recaptured the magic and published another winner: "Hacker's Challenge 2" (HC2). This is the sort of book that needs to be used when interviewing new hires or promoting technical staff. If the candidate has read the book and knows the answers to the challenges, she at least demonstrates her commitment to learning, as well as an ability to remember what she reads. If she can solve the challenges without having read the book, she shows a higher level of skill. If she has no clue how to respond to the challenges, you can move on to the next candidate.

The majority of HC2 involves three subjects. Challenges 1,3,7, and 16 revolve around wireless insecurities. Challenges 2,5,6,15, and 17 discuss network-based attacks. Solving the mysteries of challenges 4,11,12,14,18, and 19 require log analysis. A few other issues are sprinkled through the text: social engineering (ch. 8), host-based digital forensics (ch. 9), a man-in-the-middle attack against SSH (ch. 13), and a crafty buffer overflow tutorial (ch. 10). None of the material struck me as being exceptionally original, although this accurately reflects the sorts of cases handled by most consultants! I was impressed by the level of explanation offered by challenge 17, where vulnerabilities associated with VLAN 1 were exposed.

HC2 has a few weaknesses. I was sorry to see Peter Lemonjello fired in challenge 5, but he appeared to strike again in challenge 11. Pages 126-8 featured some of the oddest techno-babble in print, offering obscure references to Rabindranath Tagore and condescending dialogue with a tech support staffer. I've given up on seeing Mike Schiffman correctly abbreviate the Air Force Information Warfare Center as "AFIWC" in his biography. His use of "AFWIC" must refer to the UN's AFrican Women In Crisis program and not the talk he gave to the AFIWC in Apr 99!

HC2 is the first must-buy of 2003, but it leaves some room for improvement. Future editions should provide greater details in the solutions, like explanations of the fields in various firewall logs. I'd also like to see the author's names on the challenges, as appeared in the first HC book. The bottom line is that HC2 is a fast read that will entertain, and more importantly, educate.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book, great reading, January 11, 2003

By	Dr Anton Chuvakin (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

The second "The Hacker's Challenge" brought with it another sleepless night of fun security reading. 19 attack cases with solutions and mitigation and prevention strategies are described by a team of known expert authors led by Mike Schiffman.

Impressive wireless DoS attack, social engineering penetrations (including one case with no technical penetration whatsoever), mysterious web defacements, SQL injection, DNS tunneling case and router attack inform and educate, just as the first book did. Authors' mildly perverse sense of humor keeps the reader in a good mood. The book begs to be read in one helping (and then reread, as needed)! "The Challenge 2" again covers a wide range of victims and attack methods.

An interesting case asks for writing an exploit and provides a walkthrough for a simple local buffer overflow attack, a novel feature of this edition.

At about scenario 12, things start to heat up and solving the case starts to require some thinking. Harder to crack cases and more sophisticated attackers up the fun level and value of information learned. Just as in the first book, solving the case usually takes some log analysis, some security knowledge and careful reading about character actions and observations.

In addition to technology-astute readers, the book will also satisfy the hard-core security policy fans. Some of the questions asked about the cases involve policy decisions.

As for the book minor blemishes, it suffers a bit from a "sequel syndrome". Namely, since the first book was so amazingly good, it is very hard to beat it and most people will compare it to the first one. Let's say that "The Challenge 2" is almost as good as its predecessor. A couple of scenarios sound somewhat ridiculous (e.g. one on "wireless terrorists"). Another couple is painfully obvious (few people are impressed by a /bin/sh bound to a port in inetd.conf or by a default router password nowadays). In addition, the scenario names often give out a hint that spoils the fun of "cracking" the story ("Freeloader" and some others).

Overall, the book is a must have, both for its educational and entertainment value. The Hacker Challenge books fuse fun storyline, mystery and technical information in one great package, that makes for awesome reading for all technical readers, in security field and beyond. It was clearly a great idea to invent such a "security thriller" book.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA is a Senior Security Analyst with a major information security company. His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than the 1st..., November 24, 2003

By	Sickness23 "anonymous coward A.C." (Antarctica) - See all my reviews

Mike Schiffman has always been a really funny guy (see what he's written in phrack loopback for examples) so I was really dissappointed with the lack of humour in the first volume of the Hackers Challenge series. That has gotten better in the second volume. There is a lot more humor in this one.

Aside from that it reads just like the first volume and is just as good in almost every way. But for the fact that in this volume the editors decided not to tell you which author wrote which chapter which I would have like to have known.