Review: Maximum Security

Review: Maximum Security

Maximum Security
A Hacker's Guide to Protecting Your Internet Site and Network
Anonymous
Sams Net
883 pages + CD-ROM, USD $49.99
ISBN 1-57521-268-4

More and more computers all over the world are getting connected to the Internet. Servers are put up by regular persons without any special knowledge about security. Thus it is no surprise that those servers are cracked at alarming rate. Sure, both software and hardware are more secure today than they were yesterday, but just can you trust a vendor?

Maximum Security teaches you not to trust anyhing. Of course, the text is not paranoid (like PGP's manual), but is instead written with the worst case in mind -- nothing is perfect.

The book is aimed at intermediate to advanced readers, and is divided into 8 parts. The first part is an introductionary part, and the real information begins on part two, "Understanding the Terrain". In this part, you will learn the principles of the security on the Internet.

Part three is about tools used to test the security of the Internet. Of course, these tools can be used to crack as well. Tools introduced introduced include sniffers, scanners, trojans and password crackers. The book doesn't give you detailed information how to use tools introduced, but you learn how they work what they can do, and where to get them, including more information.

Part four tells about operating system security. Covered are Windows NT, Unix (of course), Novell and Macintosh, but the list doesn't stop here. As you can probably guess, most of the text in this part is Unix-related. This part gives you much valuable information, plus direct "how to" info. For example, there are many ways to crack or stop a Windows NT server -- and that pretty easy! (I used to think that NT was secure... But don't don't get me wrong, NT is quite secure.)

The remaining parts of the book tell you not only "how to", but they also tell you how to keep your server clean. For example, you learn about firewalls and equal devices. Simply said, this is great information. Finally, part eight reminds about the law, or the lack of it, like in certain countries.

This book is good, no doubt about it. It is written so that it is easy to read, although sometimes the things open only if you know Unix. The references to Internet sites and other books/people are excellent. If you want to know about security, no matter your operating system, this book is for you. Of course, if you want to focus to certain systems, more detailed books do exist. I give this book a 4+/5 rating -- I would give 5- if the hidden message wouldn't be so hard to crack! ;-)