Hacker's Challenge 2

Francis White writes "Hacker's Challenge 2 is the second volume in a series of books that present a series of real-world security scenarios and their solutions. For each scenario, information is given, clues are presented and questions are asked of the reader. Turning to the back of the book reveals what really happened along with suggestions and tips for how to respond to and possibly even prevent each presented attack." Read on for the rest of his review. Hacker's Challenge 2 author Mike Schiffman, Bill Pennington, Adam J. O'Donnell, David Pollino pages 352 publisher McGraw-Hill Osborne Media rating 9 reviewer Francis (Frank) White ISBN 0072226307 summary A computer security puzzle book with interesting challenges and detailed solutions

What It Covers

The scenarios in the book cover a wide range of current attacks. There are a few scenarios involving wireless access that each manage to point out a different facet of wireless security. Also, the book includes a few examples of network penetrations, a man in the middle attack, a bit of forensic analysis and the highly popular (in the media at least) "insider attack." One chapter focuses on exploit development using a simple stack overflow, which is a nice diversion.

The book's format is identical to that of the previous volume. Each challenge is rated Low, Medium, or High for Attack Complexity, Prevention and Mitigation. An account of each problem is presented (organized by date and time), often from the point of view of the person charged with figuring out what is happening or has happened. Logs are presented as they are requested by the investigator; the authors do a great job of following the thought processes and actions of the people responding to the incident as they discover each clue and take their steps forward.

At the end of each scenario description, there are a number of questions that generally help focus the reader's attention on the relevant parts of the scenario. After the reader comes up with some likely answers, he can turn to the back of the book where the solutions are found. Each solution is broken down into an explanation of the attack, how the attack could have been prevented, and steps to take to mitigate the effects of the attack after it has occurred.

The explanation highlights the clues that were presented, how they could have been used to solve the challenge, and the right (or wrong) steps the investigator took and why. Links to additional information and references are provided at the end of each solution.

The Authors

Hacker's Challenge 2 is written by Mike Schiffman (@stake), Bill Pennington (WhiteHatSec), Adam J. O'Donnell (working towards PhD at Drexel), and David Pollino (@stake). From the material presented, if not from their reputations and contributions to the computer security field (some of them under other names), the authors are obviously very familiar with analyzing and responding to security incidents. All of them contributed to the previous volume in the series. The book does not identify who wrote each chapter, unlike the first volume.

Why I Gave This Book A 9 I have read the previous volume in the series. I liked this volume a lot more, and while I was reading it, I tried to work out why. One of the possibilities I came up with is that they trimmed the number of authors from somewhere around ten, as they had used for the previous volume. The consistency of the writing and scenarios is greatly improved. The scenarios in this book are also much more interesting to me than in the previous book. It feels much more current than the previous volume. (I still recommend the previous volume, however, if you haven't been following possible attacks and countermeasures for a while. - I'd say I'd give it a 7.)

From the first chapter which opens with a still under-publicized layer-2 802.11 attack, it grabbed my attention. This is a great book for seeing not just what attacks are out there, but what attacks people in the security industry think are likely in the real world.

Like the previous volume, there doesn't appear to be much vendor bias in this book, which is always a welcome sight to me. Also, although the authors work in the security industry, they stay away from promoting themselves or their companies. (They do include links to some documents on company web sites, but they are technical documents, not marketing fluff.)

This volume is also packed with humor, although perhaps not everyone will appreciate or catch all of the jokes. My favorite quote in the book is from the chapter where "d4rkl0rd", a young novice hax0r who only speaks in l33t speak, is at the dinner table : "n0 m0m, 3y3 h4t3 gr33n b34ns, dUh!"

Conclusion I definitely recommend Hacker's Challenge 2 to anyone interested in, or responsible for, computer security. Even if you are very familiar with the subject, it's worthwhile to look over the attacks and solutions presented, and to compare the suggested response with the one you would use if presented with a similar scenario. The book is worth picking up even if you have read the previous volume, as it is of even higher quality, and covers, for the most part, completely different attacks. The format is easy to read and the real-world problem scenarios presented are interesting enough to keep you reading. The solutions are well presented and thorough, covering not just what happened in the attack and how to put the course of events together from the clues, but also ways to prevent and mitigate the attacks. Highly recommended. You can purchase Hacker's Challenge 2 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.