Authors: Jim Aspinwall.
Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2004-10-25


Reviews :

    Intel-and AMD-powered PCs--which account for more than 90% of all personal computers--are powerful and expandable, and operating systems like Windows and Linux do a great job of running well on this hardware. But to maintain maximum stability and predictability, these operating systems don't push the hardware to its limits. That doesn't mean you can't. PC Hacks shows PC users like you how to get the most out of your hardware and software to make your PC experience more satisfying than ever. You don't need another collection of simple tips and command-clicks; you need PC Hacks, where you'll find proven techniques for enhancing performance and preventing problems with your PC hardware. This step-by-step, hack-by-hack guide, with invaluable tips and tricks throughout, will get you hacking the system board, CPU, BIOS, peripherals and operating system--everything but the unhackable power supply! In PC Hacks, Jim Aspinwall, the Windows Helpdesk columnist and feature editor for CNET.COM and author of three books on PC maintenance, delivers basic to advanced hacks for overclocking CPU and video cards, tweaking RAM timing, selecting the best performing components, and much more. He includes suggestions for reusing an old PC to off-load work from newer systems as well as ways to prevent security hacks. He also offers many tips for avoiding common mistakes--and for getting the system back up and running if something does go wrong. PC Hacks combines of the bestselling Hacks series style with the world's most popular computing hardware. Presented in a clear and direct format and covering both Windows and Linux operating systems, PC Hacks ensure that you'll hack and tweak your way to the best performance possible out of your trusty PC....

Authors: Nitesh Dhanjani. Justin Clarke.
Paperback, 340 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2005-04-04


Reviews :

    If you're an advanced security professional, then you know that the battle to protect online privacy continues to rage on. Security chat rooms, especially, are resounding with calls for vendors to take more responsibility to release products that are more secure. In fact, with all the information and code that is passed on a daily basis, it's a fight that may never end. Fortunately, there are a number of open source security tools that give you a leg up in the battle. Often a security tool does exactly what you want, right out of the box. More frequently, you need to customize the tool to fit the needs of your network structure. Network Security Tools shows experienced administrators how to modify, customize, and extend popular open source security tools such as Nikto, Ettercap, and Nessus. This concise, high-end guide discusses the common customizations and extensions for these tools, then shows you how to write even more specialized attack and penetration reviews that are suited to your unique network environment. It also explains how tools like port scanners, packet injectors, network sniffers, and web assessment tools function. Some of the topics covered include:

• Writing your own network sniffers and packet injection tools
• Writing plugins for Nessus, Ettercap, and Nikto
• Developing exploits for Metasploit
• Code analysis for web applications
• Writing kernel modules for security applications, and understanding rootkits

While many books on security are either tediously academic or overly sensational, Network Security Tools takes an even-handed and accessible approach that will let you quickly review the problem and implement new, practical solutions--without reinventing the wheel. In an age when security is critical, Network Security Tools is the resource you want at your side when locking down your network....

Authors: Richard Deal.
Paperback, 912 pages
Publisher: Cisco Press
Publication Date: 2004-08-20


Reviews :

   

Harden perimeter routers with Cisco firewall functionality and features to ensure network security

• Detect and prevent denial of service (DoS) attacks with TCP Intercept, Context-Based Access Control (CBAC), and rate-limiting techniques
• Use Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR) to detect and filter unwanted and malicious traffic
• Use router authentication to prevent spoofing and routing attacks
• Activate basic Cisco IOS filtering features like standard, extended, timed, lock-and-key, and reflexive ACLs to block various types of security threats and attacks, such as spoofing, DoS, Trojan horses, and worms
• Use black hole routing, policy routing, and Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) to protect against spoofing attacks
• Apply stateful filtering of traffic with CBAC, including dynamic port mapping
• Use Authentication Proxy (AP) for user authentication
• Perform address translation with NAT, PAT, load distribution, and other methods
• Implement stateful NAT (SNAT) for redundancy
• Use Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to protect against basic types of attacks
• Obtain how-to instructions on basic logging and learn to easily interpret results
• Apply IPSec to provide secure connectivity for site-to-site and remote access connections
• Read about many, many more features of the IOS firewall for mastery of router security

The Cisco IOS firewall offers you the feature-rich functionality that you've come to expect from best-of-breed firewalls: address translation, authentication, encryption, stateful filtering, failover, URL content filtering, ACLs, NBAR, and many others. Cisco Router Firewall Security teaches you how to use the Cisco IOS firewall to enhance the security of your perimeter routers and, along the way, take advantage of the flexibility and scalability that is part of the Cisco IOS Software package.

Each chapter in Cisco Router Firewall Security addresses an important component of perimeter router security. Author Richard Deal explains the advantages and disadvantages of all key security features to help you understand when they should be used and includes examples from his personal consulting experience to illustrate critical issues and security pitfalls. A detailed case study is included at the end of the book, which illustrates best practices and specific information on how to implement Cisco router security features.

Whether you are looking to learn about firewall security or seeking how-to techniques to enhance security in your Cisco routers, Cisco Router Firewall Security is your complete reference for securing the perimeter of your network.

This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press, which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.

...

Authors: Rick Lehtinen. G.T. Gangemi.
Paperback, 310 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006-06-13
Edition: 2

Reviews :

   

This is the must-have book for a must-know field. Today, general security knowledge is mandatory, and, if you who need to understand the fundamentals, Computer Security Basics 2nd Edition is the book to consult.

The new edition builds on the well-established principles developed in the original edition and thoroughly updates that core knowledge. For anyone involved with computer security, including security administrators, system administrators, developers, and IT managers, Computer Security Basics 2nd Edition offers a clear overview of the security concepts you need to know, including access controls, malicious software, security policy, cryptography, biometrics, as well as government regulations and standards.

This handbook describes complicated concepts such as trusted systems, encryption, and mandatory access control in simple terms. It tells you what you need to know to understand the basics of computer security, and it will help you persuade your employees to practice safe computing.

Topics include:

• Computer security concepts
• Security breaches, such as viruses and other malicious programs
• Access controls
• Security policy
• Web attacks
• Communications and network security
• Encryption
• Physical security and biometrics
• Wireless network security
• Computer security and requirements of the Orange Book
• OSI Model and TEMPEST

...

Authors: Jeff Sedayao.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2001-06-07


Reviews :

    Cisco routers are used widely both on the Internet and in corporate intranets. At the same time, the Cisco Internet Operating System (IOS) has grown to be very large and complex, and Cisco documentation fills several volumes.

"Cisco IOS Access Lists" focuses on a critical aspect of the Cisco IOS--access lists. Access lists are central to the task of securing routers and networks, and administrators cannot implement access control policies or traffic routing policies without them. Access lists are used to specify both the targets of network policies and the policies themselves. They specify packet filtering for firewalls all over the Internet.

"Cisco IOS Access Lists" covers three critical areas:

Intranets. The book serves as an introduction and a reference for network engineers implementing routing policies within intranet networking.

Firewalls. The book is a supplement and companion reference to books such as Brent Chapman's "Building Internet Firewalls." Packet filtering is an integral part of many firewall architectures, and

"Cisco IOS Access Lists "describes common packet filtering tasks and provides a "bag of tricks" for firewall implementers.

The Internet. This book is also a guide to the complicated world of route maps. Route maps are an arcane BGP construct necessary to make high level routing work on the Internet.

"Cisco IOS Access Lists" differs from other Cisco router titles in that it focuses on practical instructions for setting router access policies. The details of interfaces and routing protocol settings are not discussed....

    Cisco IOS Access Lists takes a methodical approach to access lists and their capabilities, and is ideal for administrators of Cisco equipment who have configured access lists before but feel as if they're not taking full advantage of their capabilities (which, author Jeff Sedayao proves, extend well beyond security). Much of what Sedayao has written is of a "policy engineering" nature, is not strictly focused on Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS), and has relevance to administrators of all sorts of access control equipment. There's emphasis on traffic minimization as well as security, as a section on using access lists to keep routing updates off stub networks exemplifies.

Like many books in the blue system-administration series, this one includes a lot of explanations of what each capability is for, and how each fits with other parts of the system. A lot of times, these sections include conceptual diagrams that show routes of communication and the desired access policies. Then come excerpts from real access lists (Sedayao focuses on IOS 10 and later) and, often, commentary on what the interesting lines of the lists are doing. It's a great way to teach people who have the ability and desire to experiment. Engineers, after all, typically like to learn by doing. --David Wall

Topics covered: The capabilities and limitations of access lists under the Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) and other similar routing and access-control environments. Access policies (with emphasis on packet filtering), routing policies (via route filtering and route maps), and the details of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) pertaining to access lists are all covered. ...

Authors: Duane Wessels.
Paperback, 318 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2001-06


Reviews :

    On the World Wide Web, speed and efficiency are vital. Users have little patience for slow web pages, while network administrators want to make the most of their available bandwidth. A properly designed web cache reduces network traffic and improves access times to popular web sites--a boon to network administrators and web users alike. Web Caching hands you all the technical information you need to design, deploy, and operate an effective web caching service. It starts with the basics of how web caching works, from the HTTP headers that govern cachability to cache validation and replacement algorithms. Topics covered in this book include:

• Designing an effective cache solution
• Configuring web browsers to use a cache
• Setting up a collection of caches that can talk to each other
• Configuring an interception cache or proxy
• Monitoring and fine-tuning the performance of a cache
• Configuring web servers to cooperate with web caches
• Benchmarking cache products

The book also covers the important political aspects of web caching, including privacy, intellectual property, and security issues. Internet service providers, large corporations, or educational institutions--in short, any network that provides connectivity to a wide variety of users--can reap enormous benefit from running a well-tuned web caching service. Web Caching shows you how to do it right....

    Web Caching explores the intricacies of implementing caching in Web server environments to reduce network traffic and improve performance. Like so many areas of Internet technology, the topic of Web caching comprises a number of architectural and practical issues that could take a career to learn the hard way. Fortunately, author Duane Wessels has organized all the nuts-and-bolts technical information in this short book.

This guide to turbo-charging the Web is primarily geared toward system administrators; however, Web developers can also learn much about the proper--and improper--use of caching their pages. The book begins with excellent chapters on the big picture of how Web caching works, including the various types of caches, hit measurements, validation, and cache refreshing. Before turning to this guide's core focus--designing and implementing caching--the author spends a chapter to explore the political issues surrounding the technology, such as privacy, content distribution, and copyrights.

Both client and server configurations are considered, and the benefits of Netscape and Microsoft implementations are explored. The journey through the efficient travels of Web requests is fascinating as you learn about proxies, intercache protocols, cache hierarchies, and benchmarking methodologies for measuring the efficiency of your solutions. Dishing up requests elegantly is not a trivial task on today's Web, but this no-nonsense book is a great help toward that goal. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• Web transport protocols
• HTTP and proxy requests
• Cache replacement and refreshing
• Political concerns
• Client configuration
• Interception proxying
• Server configuration
• Cache hierarchies
• Intercache protocols
• Cache clustering
• Monitoring/benchmarking
• Cache trace analysis

...

Authors: David H. Freedman. Charles C. Mann.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Touchstone
Publication Date: 1998-06-03


Reviews :

    Hailed as "a chilling portrait" by The Boston Globe and "a crafty thriller" by Newsweek, this astonishing story of an obsessive hacker promises to change the way you look at the Internet forever.

At Large chronicles the massive manhunt that united hard-nosed FBI agents, computer nerds, and uptight security bureaucrats against an elusive computer outlaw who broke into highly secured computer systems at banks, universities, federal agencies, and top-secret military weapons-research sites. Here is "a real-life tale of cops vs. hackers, by two technology writers with a flair for turning a complicated crime and investigation into a fast-moving edge-of-your-seat story" (Kirkus Reviews, starred). At Large blows the lid off the frightening vulnerability of the global online network, which leaves not only systems, but also individuals, exposed....

    Perhaps the scariest story of insufficient computer security and cybercrime yet is the true tale of Phantom Dialer. He accessed university and military research centers, banks, even the computers that controlled central California's dams. His actions could have put tens of thousands of lives at risk. And what makes it so frightening is that he was not a criminal or computing genius. He was a curious, persistent, and mentally-challenged young man who never truly understood his own actions. So if he could do that, what might a determined terrorist do? Because, as Charles Mann and David Freedman show, advances in the Internet have been making it easier, not harder, for security crackers to go where they're not wanted. The book reads like a techno-thriller--from the discovery of a small cyberbreak-in to the massive manhunt that tracked him down and the troubled birth of the FBI's computer crime squad--complete with all the humor and poignancies of real human events. ...

Authors: Maik Schmidt.
Paperback, 425 pages
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Publication Date: 2008-11-17


Reviews :

    Enterprise Recipes with Ruby and Rails helps you to overcome typical obstacles hidden in every enterprise's infrastructure. It doesn't matter if your Rails application needs to access your company's message-oriented middleware or if it has to scan through tons of huge XML documents to get a missing piece of data. Ruby and Rails enable you to create solutions that are both elegant and efficient.

With more than 50 concise, targeted recipes, this book shows you how to use existing infrastructure to develop effectively for the enterprise. For example, Ruby is an excellent language for manipulating both textual and binary data. This is enormously useful, because typical enterprise software is about storing and processing huge amounts of data. You'll learn how to process data in various popular data formats such as XML, CSV, fixed length records, and JSON.

This book covers the whole spectrum of distributed application technologies, ranging from simple socket-based servers to full-blown Service Oriented Architectures. In addition, Ruby is a perfect ally when you have to integrate with RESTful and SOAP services, or when you have to access message-oriented middleware. It even helps you to reuse your existing C/C , Java, or .NET code with ease.

Since the advent of the Web, many enterprises have opened their internal services to the outside world to participate in the rapidly growing world of e-commerce. As an enterprise programmer you'd better learn how to use existing payment gateways and how to implement security mechanisms to protect your company's data and your customers' privacy, and this book shows you how.

Enterprise programming is not only about developing huge software projects but also about maintaining and operating them. You'll save a lot of valuable time if you document your software (of course, automatically) and automate tedious and recurring tasks, such as monitoring your servers and testing your programs. Enterprise Recipes with Ruby and Rails covers these major enterprise concerns, giving you tools and knowledge you'll turn to over and over....

Authors: Dale Tesch. Greg Abelar.
Paperback, 408 pages
Publisher: Cisco Press
Publication Date: 2006-10-08
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Identify, manage, and counter security threats with the Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System

 

Dale Tesch

Greg Abelar

 

While it is commonly understood that deploying network security devices is critical to the well-being of an organization’s systems and data, all too often companies assume that simply having these devices is enough to maintain the integrity of network resources. To really provide effective protection for their networks, organizations need to take the next step by closely examining network infrastructure, host, application, and security events to determine if an attack has exploited devices on their networks.

 

Cisco® Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System (Cisco Security MARS) complements network and security infrastructure investment by delivering a security command and control solution that is easy to deploy, easy to use, and cost-effective. Cisco Security MARS fortifies deployed network devices and security countermeasures, empowering you to readily identify, manage, and eliminate network attacks and maintain compliance.

 

Security Threat Mitigation and Response helps you understand this powerful new security paradigm that reduces your security risks and helps you comply with new data privacy standards. This book clearly presents the advantages of moving from a security reporting system to an all-inclusive security and network threat recognition and mitigation system. You will learn how Cisco Security MARS works, what the potential return on investment is for deploying Cisco Security MARS, and how to set up and configure Cisco Security MARS in your network.

 

“Dealing with gigantic amounts of disparate data is the next big challenge in computer security; if you’re a Cisco Security MARS user, this book is what you’ve been looking for.”

–Marcus J. Ranum, Chief of Security, Tenable Security, Inc.

 

Dale Tesch is a product sales specialist for the Cisco Security MARS product line for the Cisco Systems® United States AT Security team. Dale came to Cisco Systems through the acquisition of Protego Networks in February 2005. Since then, he has had the primary responsibilities of training the Cisco sales and engineering team on SIM systems and Cisco Security MARS and for providing advanced sales support to Cisco customers. 

 

Greg Abelar has been an employee of Cisco Systems since December 1996. He was an original member of the Cisco Technical Assistance Security team, helping to hire and train many of the team’s engineers. He has held various positions in both the Security Architecture and Security Technical Marketing Engineering teams at Cisco.

 

• Understand how to protect your network with a defense-in-depth strategy
• Examine real-world examples of cost savings realized by Cisco Security MARS deployments
• Evaluate the technology that underpins the Cisco Security MARS appliance
• Set up and configure Cisco Security MARS devices and customize them for your environment
• Configure Cisco Security MARS to communicate with your existing hosts, servers, network devices, security appliances, and other devices in your network
• Investigate reported threats and use predefined reports and queries to get additional information about events and devices in your network
• Use custom reports and custom queries to generate device and event information about your network and security events
• Learn firsthand from real-world customer stories how Cisco Security MARS has thwarted network attacks

 

This security book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. Security titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals secure critical data and resources, prevent and mitigate network attacks, and build end-to-end self-defending networks.

 

Category: Cisco Press–Security

Covers: Security Threat Mitigation

 

 

...

Authors: Edward Humphreys.
Hardcover, 290 pages
Publisher: Artech House Publishers
Publication Date: 2007-09-30
Edition: 1