Firewalls and Internet Security, 2nd Ed.

Eater writes "Over the last decade, we've seen an explosion in the area of books dealing with the subject of Internet security. Few have defined the genre as well as Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker by Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin. Security gurus rejoice... the 2nd edition is finally here!" Eater compares this new version to the original in his review below. Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker, 2nd Ed. author William Cheswick, Steven Bellovin, Aviel Rubin pages 455 publisher Addison-Wesley rating 9 reviewer Eater ISBN 020163466X summary Long-awaited second edition of the security administrator's favorite classic.

Those familiar with this classic have undoubtedly recommended it to other hackers seeking a definitive text. Firewalls and Internet Security has provided a roadmap for security conscious sysadmins since its publication in 1994. It mixed sound policy recommendations with examples of UNIX-based implementations, all rooted in experience from working in AT&T corporate security.

Although many of the ideas laid out in the original edition are just as relevant in today's Internet, much has changed technically since 1994. Alas, this month Addison-Wesley has released a new second edition ... nearly complete rewrite (and 135 page expansion) of the original classic.

A glance at the new edition indeed reveals significant changes. Avi Rubin has been added as an author. The preface details some of the predictions made from the first edition... some of which came true, and others that didn't. Most sections have been vastly expanded, if not completely restructured.

Denial-of-services (DoS) attacks, infamous in the previous decade, are explored in greater depth. Replacements of deprecated tools have been given new sections (ssh is detailed following the chapter on the "r" commands, for example.) The myriad of enumeration tools available today are discussed (i.e., Nessus, hping, nmap).

Intrusion-detection tools, almost completely absent from the first edition, are given space in the new book, although not nearly as much as I would have liked. Much has been added on the subject of cryptography and authentication. Forthcoming standards like IPV6 and DNSsec are discussed.

Those who've read the original will recall the "Evening with Berferd." the chapter detailing a break-in the authors were able to watch and analyze in real-time. This inspired more than a few honeypot oriented projects. The second edition introduces a second real-world scenario, the "Taking of Clark," which illustrates forensic measures to be taken after after a host is compromised. Fans of Foundstone's Hacker's Challenge will find it familiar.

The defining thread across all of these topics is what makes this book a classic: the emphasis of the "why," not just the "how." Although the examples are mostly geared towards UNIX users, the guidance and policy suggestions are directly applicable to any platform where the reader is responsible for making security decisions.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of this book is its availability: it's on the web here. Those who are working in the security field, or those interested in it, will benefit from owning the hard-copy available from Addison-Wesley.

You can also purchase Firewalls and Internet Security, 2nd Edition from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

How does it stack up against...

[ratbag]

O'Reilly's Building Internet Firewalls (Zwicky, Cooper & Chapman)?

Rob. (In the spirit of complete disclosure, I used to work with Simon Cooper's mum)

Correction

[arvindn]

The first edition is available online. Of the second edition, a couple of chapters are available (in pdf, one in html). It does not say if the remaining chapters will become available. Anyone has information on this?

One of the reference books for tcpip today...

[DeHar]

Edition one of this book has a permanent place on the reference shelf of my tcpip classroom. Anytime you're talking about tcpip connectivity these days, you are also talking about securing that connectivity.

The content may be beyond a lot of beginners, but folks need to look at what is possible.

Re:Cartoons?

[REBloomfield]

I think the quotes were the best bits, things like :

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes (but who will guard the guards themselves?)

have been recited by me to many colleagues over the past few years.....

Web security documents

[Anonymous Coward]

www.cgisecurity.com/lib

Re:Intelligent IDS

[MarauderJr]

I have had the chance to play with it some over the past month. I am planning on putting in an Intelligent IDS on a new networking project that I am currently working on. Mainly for these reasons:

• I will not be onsite. I do not want to drive for a couple of hours every time there is a potential problem such as, "I think someone has hacked our network!"
• SecurityProfiling's Intelligent IDS and SysUpdate work on most major OS's (Windows, Linux variants, Irix, Apple's OS's).
• The intelligent IDS solution will be able to watch all incoming traffic on the network for me and e-mail me if it catches any potentially malicious activity.
• The Intelligent IDS will be able to check all the systems on the network if an attack is occuring against known security flaw and check to see if all systems have the proper patches in place to make the the attack unsuccessful against known security flaw.
• If a system is not patched against known security flaw, the Intelligent IDS will go out and get the security patch and install it on all systems that are not already patched.
• The Intelligent IDS will report less false positives and less false negitaves than current IDS's.

Overall, I believe that the Intelligent IDS can be a wonderful solution for almost any type of network. I'm setting up one for my office and my apt.

Alexander Harrison
Nocturn Designs

Re:What about patched for human security holes?

[Wee]

That patch will be issued immediately after the patch that causes asshole sysadmins to stop requiring a new password every 30 days that doesn't match any of the previous 11 passwords, is at least 8 characters long containing mixed case, a number, and a non-alphanumeric character.

I just did a web-based auth system at work. We have a new web site structure, and we wanted to protect an area for faculty and staff only (I work at a university, in the CS department). I had to come up with a scheme to "force" good passwords for use with the web site (since there will be stuff in that private area that students should never be able to see). It's harder to do than you might think. There's a very fine line between pissing people off with strong passwords and letting them slide by using things like "qwerty".

In the end, I came up with this:

• >=6 characters
• At least one non-alphanumeric character
• Cannot be based on username (forward or backward)

That's it. Pretty easy going, right? Not really. I've had a couple people complain already (it's been two days since we went live). I even removed the "Cannot be based on a dictionary word" requirement. We also removed the "Cannot be the same as your Unix system password" requirement (over my loud protestations).

I actually had a professor (a computer science professor, mind you) ask that I make it more lenient. He lamented to me that because he had to choose a "strange" password (since his "normal" password didn't pass my tests), he had already forgotten what he had chosen. He then asked me to email him and let him know what his password is. After I got done laughing, I prepared a carefully-worded LARTish email explaining to him what a one-way hash is and why I wasn't able to tell him what his word was, even if I wanted to send it to him in email. I also threw in a little bit of "weak passwords are the #1 security hole" boilerplate and explained that I was glad that his normal system password wasn't able to be used on the web site.

I haven't sent the email yet; I thought it might be too harsh so I decided to sit on it overnight. I think on one hand that anyone clueless enough to use a password that can't pass even my lame scheme deserves to be cut down a notch or two. Then I think that he's a tenured prefessor, and I should be more respectful. Then I think that he's a tenured professor, and yet is a complete idiot, and I go back to #1. I've always wanted to give a prof what-for.

-B