Security Sage's Guide to Hardening the Network Infrastructure

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 608 pages
• Published by: Syngress
• Edition: 1st Edition March 1, 2004
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1931836019
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1931836012
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.7 pounds

Product Description
Security Sage's Guide to Hardening the Network Infrastructure will be the only publication that provides security and Information Technology (IT) professionals an in-depth and comprehensive view of network devices, protocols and architectures. It provides detailed guidance on real-world network threats and exposures. While most network security books focus on ancillary topics, such as operating systems, RDBMS, groupware, and other applications, this book will concentrate strictly on the nuts and bolts of networks, such as routers, firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and the networking protocols that work in congress with them. It has over 200 pages dedicated to the most up-to-date network layer attacks and mitigation techniques across an wide assortment of vendors and not just the typical attention paid to market leaders such as Cisco and Checkpoint. This expanded breadth will help reach a wider range of network engineers who may not have the budget to purchase and install best-of-breed hardware, but want to know how to make the most out of what they do have. In addition, this book provides detailed network architecture and design techniques to help lessen the impact or feasibility of potential attacks. This book focuses on both perimeter and internal networks, giving IT and security administrators a complete picture of how they should design and protect their enterprises. Other books may concentrate on perimeter security or host configuration yet ignore the infrastructure connecting the two. While others tend to focus on theory and basic security background, this publication will dive right into the content and help provide real solutions to common IT security problems.

Download Description
Special Ops: Infrastructure will be the only publication that provides security and Information Technology (IT) professionals an in depth and comprehensive view of network devices, protocols and architectures. It builds on concepts presented in the original Special Ops book and provide detailed guidance on real world network threats and exposures. While most network security books focus on ancillary topics?such as operating systems, RDBMS, groupware, and other applications?this edition in the Special Ops series will concentrate strictly on the nuts and bolts of networks, such as routers, firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and the networking protocols that work in congress with them. Special Ops: Infrastructure will have over 200 pages dedicated to the most up to-date network layer attacks and mitigation techniques across an wide assortment of vendors and not just the typical attention paid to market leaders such as Cisco and Checkpoint. This expanded breadth will help reach a wider range of network engineers who may not have the budget to purchase and install best-of-breed hardware, but want to know how to make the most out of what they do have. In addition, this book provides detailed network architecture and design techniques to help lessen the impact or feasibility of potential attacks. --This text refers to the Digital edition.

Reader Reviews
This is a tough review to write, since I worked with the lead authors and series editor at Foundstone, and I'm mentioned by name on p. 384. "Security Sage's Guide to Hardening the Network Infrastructure" (HTNI) is mainly a collection of advice given in other security books, packaged with brochure-like commercial product descriptions. Much of the technical defensive recommendations lack the command-level syntax to put that advice into practical use. I was excited by the table of contents, but disappointed once I finished the book. I can't recommend HTNI unless your library doesn't already address essential networking and security techniques. Let me first address comments by earlier reviewers. Some liked the "Notes from the Underground." These "notes" seem out of place when they bear titles like "Novell and Ethernet Frame Types" or "Types of Ethernet" (both ch 7); they belong in standard networking texts. Another reviewer said "the writing is witty, intelligent and doesn't condescend." I disagree after reading this sentence on p. 141: "Add to this the fact that Microsoft is certainly the 'black sheep' of the security world and you end up with one disaster of a firewall product." Another gem appears on p. 322, regarding SOHO switches: "And while you're at your favorite hardware vendor getting the switches, pick us up a pack of beef jerky." That isn't "witty" -- it's an unnecessary slam on small offices who can't fork over "half a million dollars" in switching gear (see p. 321) but need Internet access nevertheless. Another reviewer liked the "hands-on and practical guidance." This is where the book is weakest. Why does an entire chapter on router security (ch 5) not provide any command syntax at all for securing a Cisco router? While ch 8 gives a few helpful commands, it is hardly comprehensive. For example, SSH is mentioned as a secure management protocol, but setup instructions for IOS are missing. Instead of providing product screen shots with little informational content, the authors should show how to "harden the network infrastructure" as readers expect. HTNI's coordinating author needed to apply greater consistency to the text, since it bears the signs of being written by several independent authors. For example, some network diagrams are fairly clear, while others use completely different symbols and are not easy to follow. Some figures convey useful ideas, like the logical network layouts in ch 10, while ch 3's figure 3.8 shows two Pix firewalls connected by a cable. Do we need to see this figure to understand how to link two firewalls for sharing redundancy tables? Speaking of redundancy, topics covered in one section are often repeated elsewhere; too many contributors felt compelled to explain firewall variations or the OSI model. Some of the Web links were also incorrect, with "ntomap" in ch 2 attributed to NAI (rather than NT Objectives) and my own Web site given a ".org" TLD instead of ".com". I did find some aspects of HTNI useful. I liked the stories about asset criticality in ch 1. I thought the advice, albeit lacking implementation-level details, was sound overall. The authors seemed to cover competitors to their own Foundstone brands fairly, although their products got more screen shots. I also liked the "mini case studies" in ch 7 addressing switch deployment. I came to HTNI after reading a five-star Syngress book on Ethereal, and I'm looking forward to their new book on Snort 2.1. I thought Erik Birkholz's "Special Ops" (another Syngress book) was excellent, and placed it on my recommended reading list. Other Foundstone-supported books like "Hacking Exposed," "Incident Response," or "Anti-Hacker Tool Kit" are great reads. HTNI is full of ideas, but they are either old news or lacking the command-level syntax to implement them in the reader's enterprise. A second edition of HTNI would be a winner if thoroughly scrubbed and suitably enhanced by actionable advice. Comment | | (Report this)