Too many network administrators depend on the "big sky" principle of network security--they believe that the large number of Internet-connected machines out there will keep black-hat hackers away. Hack Proofing Your Network: Internet Tradecraft points out that statistics are no defense, and that such an attitude is irresponsible. The book shows steps that you can take to harden your resources against attack. Although most of the material in this book isn't up-to-the-minute (how could it be, when the tactics of attackers change daily), you can discourage hackers by implementing the strategies that it describes.
Many antihacking texts assume a fair bit of knowledge, but this one doesn't. Ryan Russell and coauthors explain many terms and concepts, such as traffic sniffing, cryptography, and file differentiation ("diffing"), and the tools that evildoers use to wreak havoc on the systems that they attack--complete with Internet addresses from which you can download them. The book walks you through sample attacks, too, such as hijacking a connection by using a tool called Hunt. Overall, this is a fine introductory-to-intermediate antihacking volume that leads well into more current and advanced resources. You might want to supplement it with two other practical computer-security books: Hacking Exposed catalogues many of the tools that bad guys use, while Network Intrusion Detection helps you analyze security logs and spot attacks in progress. --David Wall
Topics covered:
- Modes of attack, and means of defending against them
- Political environment governing software and networking
- Laws and policies springing from that environment
- Approaches to the problem of breaking into systems or denying their services to legitimate users
- Spoofing
- Sniffing
- Transmission interception
- Several other popular tactics
Book Description
If you don’t hack your systems, who will?
One of the reasons I put this book project together is that I believe security professionals should be hackers. In this case, by hackers, I mean people who are capable of defeating security measures. This book purports to teach people how to be hackers. In reality, most of the people who buy this book will do so because they want to protect their own systems and those of their employer. So, how can you prevent break-ins to your system if you don’t know how they are accomplished? How do you test your security measures? How do you make a judgment about how secure a new system is?
When you’re through reading Hack Proofing Your Network, you’ll understand terms like “smashing the stack,” “blind spoofing,” “building a backward bridge,” “steganography,” “buffer overflow” and you’ll see why you need to worry about them. You will learn how to protect your servers from attacks by using a 5-step approach:
1. Planning
2. Network/Machine Recon
3. Research/Develop
4. Execute Attack and Achieve Goal
5. Cleanup
And you’ll understand the theory of hacking, how to fend off local and remote attacks, and how to report and evaluate security problems.
The Only Way to Stop a Hacker Is to Think Like One.
---Ryan Russell, Hack Proofing Your Network
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