The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Hacking Exposed - for the bookshelf Major Keary |
Over the past four years McGraw-Hill has been publishing titles in a Hacking Exposed series with regular releases of new, updated, editions. It is unfortunate that the term, hacking, is used pejoratively by some authors and publishers; even though individuals may hack code for malicious and/or illegal purposes, that does not mean all hackers are bad. The fact is that hackers have contributed greatly to the development of many applications, and continue to do so. If Microsoft placed source code in the public domain its products might not require service packs and second releases.
Linux, Perl, and TeX are just three examples of what hacker support can achieve. Proprietary software often forces users to find a non-standard way around the system (in other words, a hack) in order to overcome an inbuilt problem. Those who view hacking as an honourable, and often productive, activity prefer to call the 'bad guys' crackers; one might also try binary burglars, or just plain attackers. However, that won't change the titles in the McGraw-Hill series, which - regardless of what they call it - contains excellent guides to network security.
There are five titles, the first of which - Hacking Exposed - appeared in 2000 and is now in its fourth edition. The fact that Bruce Schneier wrote a foreword is testament to its authoritativeness, not to mention the first edition sales of 100,000 plus. It takes the reader through "the basic attack methodology", discusses system vulnerabilities and how they are exploited, and puts forward solutions. Even though the authors achieve considerable technical depth, the discussions are in plain, straightforward language. Much of the text does not require readers to have a background in networking and programming, but the primary audience is network security professionals.
A copy of the second edition of Hacking Exposed is in the library; it is worth browsing to get an idea of just how comprehensive the series is.
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Hacking Exposed 4/e ISBN 0-07-222742-7 Published by McGraw-Hill, RRP $89.95 incl. GST |
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Windows Server 2003
Hacking Windows Server 2003 Exposed presents a complete coverage of the new
security features in Windows Server 2003. It includes an overview of new
architectural changes and how they might be exploited in an attack, how to use
the .net Framework to protect against malicious software attacks, an explanation
of new privilege escalation exploits, and new Terminal Server enumeration and
attack techniques.
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Hacking Windows Server 2003 Exposed ISBN 0-07-223061-4 Published by McGraw-Hill, 608 pp., RRP $89.95 incl. GST |
Other Titles
Other titles in the series cover Linux, Java, and Web Applications. Details are:
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Hacking Linux Exposed 2/e ISBN 0-07-222564-5 RRP $89.95 incl. GST Hacking Java Exposed ISBN 0-07-222565-3 RRP $89.95 incl. GST Hacking Web Applications Exposed ISBN 0-07-222438-X RRP $89.95 incl. GST |
Reprinted from the June 2004 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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