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Security Books Media Book Reviews

Special Ops 95

Posted by timothy from the rat-patrol dept.
If maintaining the security of networked machines running Microsoft Windows is part of your job (but you need a touch of Oracle and UNIX advice, too), take heart. elwing writes "Don't let the cover title and camo look turn you away -- Special Ops is a no-nonsense guide to securing your network from inside attackers. This is one of the first books I've seen which covers this topic in detail. It doesn't skimp on external threats, but the majority of the book deals with host based security." Read on for the rest of elwing's review.
Special Ops: Host and Network Security for Microsoft, UNIX, and Oracle
author Erik Pace Birkholz, et al.
pages 1040
publisher Syngress
rating 8 - Worth Reading
reviewer elwing
ISBN 1931836698
summary Taking a look at securing your network from the inside.

In order to get the most out of Special Ops, I suggest that you brush up on your system administration skills, particularly Microsoft technologies. The book is aimed primarily at security and systems administrators, but several of the chapters are either aimed specifically at management (Chaps 17 & 18), or could easily be understood by them (chaps 1-3).

The authors write in a conversational, matter-of-fact style, including personal anecdotes and experiences where appropriate. The editors did a great job of "smoothing out" the styles of the different authors to give Special Ops a consistent feel.

One of the best features of Special Ops is the end-of-chapter content. These summaries include a "Security Checklist" which creates a nice list for admins to take into the field, a one-page summary of the chapter, links to relevant web pages, relevant mailing lists, other books to read for more in-depth information, a "Solutions Fast Track," and a FAQ. Some chapters list all of the freeware and commercial tools used/mentioned in that chapter. The Solutions Fast Track is a great section to hand to your slightly more technical manager explaining why you should secure a specific service. These chapter extras make Special Ops a great reference book, even if you never bother to read the rest of it.

Another great feature is the "Notes from the Underground ..." sections scattered throughout the book. All of the authors have worked in security for several years, and they share specific examples of attacks or other interesting tidbits they've seen over the years.

I had trouble giving Special Ops a rating of 9 or 10 for a few reasons. Even though the book is an easy read, it's a lot of information to digest. The subtitle makes it sound as if Microsoft, UNIX, and Oracle would receive equal treatment: not so. While there are 7 chapters on Microsoft specific technologies, UNIX and Oracle rate one chapter each. I would have preferred to see Special Ops split into 2 or 3 books, giving equal attention to all of the technologies.

The authors' bias towards certain commercial tools shows through as well. Granted, the majority of the authors are also Foundstone employees, but they should have given equal treatment to all tools. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of each tool and allow the reader to decide on the "best" tool.

All in all, Special Ops is a great book. It will definitely reside on my reference shelf for years to come.

Table of Contents
  1. Assessing Internal Network Security
  2. Inventory and Exposure of Corporate Assets
  3. Hunting for High Severity Vulnerabilities (HSV)
  4. Attacking and Defending Windows XP Professional
  5. Attacking and Defending Windows 2000
  6. Securing Active Directory
  7. Securing Exchange and Outlook Web Access
  8. Attacking and Defending DNS
  9. Attacking and Defending Microsoft Terminal Services
  10. Securing IIS
  11. Hacking Custom Web Applications
  12. Attacking and Defending Microsoft SQL Server
  13. Attacking and Defending Oracle
  14. Attacking and Defending Unix
  15. Wireless LANs: Discovery and Defense
  16. Network Architecture
  17. Architecting the Human Factor
  18. Creating Effective Corporate Security Policies

You can purchase the Special Ops from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Special Ops More

Special Ops

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  • He means, Uninstalling Windows 2000, doesn't he?

  • I Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SkArcher ( 676201 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:20PM (#6224146) Journal
    I f I can get my emplotyer to buy this for me?

    It is certainly the kind of problem I often end up facing at work, far too many people know just enough to majorly fuck things up nowadays.

    Personally, I would prefer not to have to use M$ware at all, but all too often legacy systems in the workplace are a lock in, so I expect to see things like this continue to be published and be popular for a good while.

    • Re:I Wonder (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ketamine-bp ( 586203 ) <calvinchong@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:26PM (#6224213)
      If I were you, I would have bought this book with my own money if the book review is reliable.

      On the other side, this book would mean quite a number of poor sysadmins facing attacks described in the book by fellow ex-employees of their company.

    • Re:I Wonder (Score:4, Funny)

      by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:54PM (#6224497) Homepage
      Just create a text file called "Important Microsoft Security Update", put instructions in it to buy you the book, then copy it to \\bossspc\c$\windows\desktop

    • Re:I Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rutledjw ( 447990 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @02:14PM (#6224686) Homepage
      Here's one way to do it. Start watching the traffic coming in on internal web servers. We've discovered a little part-time hacking on our internal network.

      While doing some application debugging, we found we were getting probed. The guy then tried a number of expoits, IIS mostly, but also a couple looking for an insecure J2EE server. It appears to be a script kiddie except that he did figure out we were running Apache (IHS, actually, but there's little difference) and J2EE and did some more probes based on that.

      The other issue is that this person would plug a computer into a different physical port in our network from the usual and wouldn't stay long. He knew he could be tracked. A little spooky, he MAY have been a script kiddie or this may have been HIS script.

      Either way, we brought it to info-sec and they promptly blew it off. I'd call that kind of thing a "job-terminating, cop-calling activity" but was alone in that. Whatever.

      Point is, watch your HTTP logs for wierd stuff. You may be suprised and may be able to use that to get some support for buying the book. Plus, it's kinda fun to know what's going on ouyt there! ;)

    • I just put in for it... Is there really a reason why your employer WOULDN'T pay for it? Seriously, any semi-competent manager would know that $47 (Amazon.com) is much cheaper than even an hour of downtime due to security concerns. If this could even possibly save you one single hour in the future, then it has already paid for itself.

  • Well, of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:21PM (#6224168) Homepage
    While there are 7 chapters on Microsoft specific technologies, UNIX and Oracle rate one chapter each.

    Well, this is a security guide, isn't it? :)

  • I've read it and found it to be grossly simplified (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beee ( 98582 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:23PM (#6224190) Homepage
    I'd rate it somewhere around 6 or 7 out of 10, certainly no where near 9. My major complaints are similar to those of the author of the article:

    - Gives no mention of its focus on Microsoft OS's, but it concentrates on them nearly entirely.
    - Simple, simple, simple. If you know your basics, most of this book is redundant and a review. There's a lengthy discussion on how a traceroute works. That's a little too simple for my tastes.
    - Though not required, the author seems excessively biased towards Microsoft OS's. He even goes so far to suggest (in mild language) that it's easier to track invaders using Microsoft products than using freely available tools. C'mon, I think we all know the pile of open source tools available for these applications outnumber and outwork anything out of Redmond.

    It's something I think newbie MS admins should read, but it doesn't hold much new content for anyone who's been admining for a year+.

  • I see Windows as a challenge... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ghengis ( 73865 ) <SLowLaRIS&xNIX,Rules> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:31PM (#6224276) Homepage Journal
    As soon as I read that there are 7 chapters on M$, I knew the M$ flames would be abundant in this thread of comments. I'd like to take a different approach to this; rather than adamently bash microsoft, I'll be more subtle about it. I see securing MS products as a challenge. Yes, they're buggy (release early / often,) and I love my Unixees more, but this could be a fun game. Anyone can RTFM and secure *nix boxen, but someone who can make a windows box truely secure... now they've done something!!

  • 1) Put computer in room (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:34PM (#6224302)
    2) Put cinderblocks around room
    3) Put bricks around cinderblocks

    Congratulations. Your Windows installation is now secure.

  • Securing web servers, and web applications (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:49PM (#6224447)

    http://www.cgisecurity.com/lib/ [cgisecurity.com]

  • deja vu (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrianUofR ( 143023 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:50PM (#6224450)
    ...If maintaining the security of networked machines running Microsoft Windows is part of your job...

    I had a nightmare about that last week. wierd.

  • In Re(sponse): (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonsey ( 593310 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @01:53PM (#6224487) Journal
    In response to the large numbers of complaints that the book focuses too narrowly on Micro$oft Products, I propose the following changes to make it more universal.

    Please remove pages 1 - 1040 and replace with the following sheet of paper:
    - - - - - - - -
    1.) Educate your users.

    Failing that:

    2.) Execute your users.

  • Hole In The Bucket (Score:5, Funny)

    by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @02:10PM (#6224635)
    I was a win admin once. Seriously, it reminded me of a traditional song called "There's a Hole In the Bucket." For your convenience, her are the lyrics (note that Henry corresponds to the win admin wannabe, Liza the security "expert"):

    I urge your to read the hole thing, one verse pr. line.

    There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
    So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.
    With what should I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza, With what should I fix it, dear Liza, with what?
    With straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, With straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, with straw.
    But the straw is too long, dear Liza, dear Liza, The straw is too long, dear Liza, too long.
    So cut it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, So cut it dear Henry, dear Henry, cut it!
    With what should I cut it, dear Liza, dear Liza, With what should I cut it, dear Liza, with what?
    Use the hatchet, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, Use the hatchet, dear Henry, the hatchet.
    But the hatchet's too dull, dear Liza, dear Liza, The hatchet's too dull, dear Liza, too dull.
    So, sharpen it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, So sharpen it dear Henry, dear Henry, sharpen it!
    With what should I sharpen it, dear Liza, dear Liza, With what should I sharpen, dear Liza, with what?
    Use the stone, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, Use the stone, dear Henry, dear Henry, the stone.
    But the stone is too dry, dear Liza, dear Liza, The stone is too dry, dear Liza, too dry.
    So wet it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, So wet it dear Henry, dear Henry, wet it.
    With what should I wet it, dear Liza, dear Liza, With what should I wet it, dear Liza, with what?
    With water, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, With water, dear Henry, dear Henry, water.
    With what should I carry it, dear Liza, dear Liza, With what should I carry it dear Liza, with what?
    Use the bucket dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, Use the bucket, dear Henry, dear Henry, the bucket!
    There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.

  • Step 1: Place Windows system in a lead safe
    Step 2: Take wire cutters and cut ethernet cable to said computer
    Step 3: Close door
    Step 4: Dump the safe into closest body of water

    Now you have a windows system no one can touch.

  • Not a chance (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @03:24PM (#6225347)
    Don't let the cover title and camo look turn you away

    It won't get a chance to turn me away. One glance at the website, and I was hammering the Back button.

  • Although I admit I'm partial to the book, it should be noted that the DNS chapter is unbiased; covering the dns infrastructure, BIND, DJBDNS, and MSDNS.
    • That's very impressive. Most *nix books address the topic as if DNS == BIND. Personally, I prefer DJBDNS not only because it's more secure, but also because of the way it is configured (small, modular, partitioned) and, er, the way it is configured (configuration files). I also use daemontools to run liveice (when the program first came out, it refused to go into the background and would not stay up for more than several hours at a time).

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