Product Description

Virtually every organization is reliant on its computer system, and when hackers infiltrate, the consequences can be grave-halts in productivity, sensitive information stolen, assets at risk. Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective, Second Edition will help you step into the minds of computer criminals so that you can predict their moves and stop them before they strike. Written for anyone with some networking experience, this completely updated edition of the bestseller covers the most serious network-related security threats, vulnerabilities, and loopholes related to most major platforms, including Windows, UNIX, and Novell. Using a hands-on approach and numerous real-life case studies, the book identifies the tools, techniques, and methods that criminals use to break into networks for espionage and malicious purposes, with tips for prevention, as well as countermeasures you can take in the event the hackers strike first. In addition to providing information on the significant advancements in the field of security, attacks, and network reconnaissance, this latest edition provides a completely new section on input validation attacks, password cracking, buffer overflows, Trojan attacks, and much, much more. A companion Web site offers all the tools, scripts, and code discussed in the book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #739888 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-10
• Released on: 2006-05-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
Ankit Fadia is an independent computer security consultant based in Silicon Valley. He has authored several internationally best-selling books on numerous topics related to computer security, and he is a widely recognized computer security guru and cyberterrorism expert. Fadia provides customized cybersecurity training and consulting solutions to major clients all across North America, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. He is also regularly invited by BBC Radio World News to share the latest updates on virus outbreaks, loopholes, and cybercrime trends. Recently, Fadia started his own computer security consulting and mobile phone solutions company based in Malaysia, with operations all across the Asian Pacific region.

Customer Reviews

Good on hacking tactics, not so great on background
This book does a better job explaining hacking techniques than it does explaining network security in general. That is, if you're interested in learning how to do some hacking, or how to protect yourself from some basic attacks, this book may be worth your while. But I wouldn't recommend it unless you have previous knowledge of, or another source for information on, the principles of network security and secure computing. You might get some wrong ideas.

In particular, the background material on how the Internet works, and on how it is managed, is spotty. For example, the author introduces and uses 'classful' IP addresses, though classless routing has been on the books for a decade. CIDR makes the interpretation of IP addresses a little more complicated than the book would lead you believe. Also from the what's-new department, the author refers to RFC 1700 as the authoritative source on port numbers, though for years (9?) an online database has been the place to find out about well-known port numbers. See RFC 3232. The section on associating geographic location with an IP number is rather optimistic. A good reviewer would have caught these and other problems.

All my gripes aside, the book has a good deal of information on specific exploits, and that is its greatest strength. The book doesn't purport to be a more than a guide to "help you step into the minds of computer criminals," but it should have been submitted to an experienced technical reviewer. A good editing & reviewing job would have helped challenge the author to make this a more valuable book.

Highly Overrated
I'm not sure what's up with all the great previous reviews. My guess is the writers of those reviews aren't extremely knowledgable in network security.

This book is riddled with inaccuracies, ranging from completely and absolutely wrong statements to misleading information. I never got through more than 5 pages without finding another instance of misleading or incorrect information.

The author's age - 17 years old - most definitely shows. He comes off as more of a "script kiddie" than anything. He obviously doesn't have the in-depth security, networking, and systems knowledge that a true security expert with a number of years of real world experience would have.

On the positive side, it does have some good information, but not valuable nor significant enough to make up for the amount of bad info.

I'd look elsewhere - this is definitely not a book I'd recommend.

A great read
...After reading "Network Security......", I found the book to be filled with extremely important bits of knowledge related to security, which one tends to overlook normally. This book is certainly a storehouse of such important aspects of security. However, I was most of all impressed with the author's ability to describe a particular attack or working from several different perspectives. The author has this uncanny ability to notice and identify several facets of the same attack. This helps the readers to better understand concepts.

The author is an excellent writer and seems to have a lot of experience in this field and has indeed churned out an AmaZING book!