Defense against the Black Arts

If there ever was a book that should not be judged by its title, Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It, is that book. Even if one uses the definition in The New Hackers Dictionary of 'a collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular application or systems area', that really does not describe this book. The truth is that hacking is none of the above. If anything, it is a process that is far from mysterious, but rather aether to describe. With that, the book does a good job of providing the reader with the information needed to run a large set of hacking tools. ... the book walks the reader through the process of how to use hacking tools and how to make sense of their output. ... a really good reference for someone experienced in the topic who wants to improve their expertise. -Ben Rothke, author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know Jesse Varsalone hits this one out of the park. Jesse leverages his depth of knowledge and experience with his years of teaching experience to get right down to business. He leads the computer forensics/hacker n00b through the nuts and bolts of vulnerabilities. He jumps right in and demonstrates in the first 3 pages what a hacker can do using descrete vulnerabilities and keeps up the pace throughout the rest of the book. ...The Table of Contents reads like a syllabus for an anti-forensics and computer security college class. It starts with the basics of Windows exploits and how to defend against them and steps the reader through each attack like a lab exercise, and then steps the reader though the defensive tools. This cookbook, lab-type presentation enables the reader to see and do the attack and understand the defense. The reader can literally follow the steps on their own test setup. At just shy of 400 pages it isn't a enormous 10 pound tomb of knowledge, but a readable, doable guide of the Black Arts of computer hacking and anti-forensics. This book would serve well as a college text for a Basic Anti-Forensics or Intro to Computer Security courses. It provided up-to-date, relevant CF concepts and exercises that are the foundation for a computer security or Computer Forensic tech. This is also a handy reference of the more common exploits, how they are utilized, detected and thwarted. I found the contents to be current and timely, combining discussions of the newest techniques with old school hacks that are still relevant today. The content is tight and without extra fluff and easy to either browse through or to follow page by page, front to back. -William D. Gerns Jr. on Amazon.com