Slashdot Mirror
Know Your Enemy, 2nd Edition
KYE was not written by a single author, rather by The Honeynet Project. They are a group of 30 individuals with complementary technical and legal skills. This diverse authorship creates a book with an abundance of valuable information.
The book details setting up a honeypot (a single host designed to gain the attention of network intruders) and a honeynet (a network designed to be penetrated to understand the motives of the attackers). If you can get an intruder to attack the bogus network, the double benefit is that 1) the attacker can do no damage to production data, while 2) his activities are being monitored, and with analysis can be understood.
The book's premise is that it is not simply enough to know you have enemies; you need to understanding what exactly it is they are doing, how they are doing it, the tools they are employing, and their objectives. Armed with such information, a company can ensure that they are best using their resources to defend and defeat their enemy.
This is the second edition of KYE and honeynets have changed significantly since the first edition came out. With that, the first five chapters of the book goes into what exactly a honeynet is, and then explains the differences between first and second-generation honeynets. The main difference between the editions is that the first edition focused more on honeypots, or individual hosts. The second edition expands that to networks meant to be broken into, namely honeynets.
The opening chapters also go into details about the specific value of honeynets. For those that entertain the idea that their honeynet is going to enable them to catch the next Kevin Mitnick, they will be clearly disappointed. The main benefit of honeypots and honeynets is information. Information is power, especially in computer security. For most hackers, their greatest fear is not necessarily getting caught, but rather having someone watch and gather information on them without their knowledge. And that is exactly what a honeynet attempts to do.
Chapter 8 (written by an attorney from the U.S. Dept. of Justice) concludes part one of the book with a look at the legal issues involved with honeynets. There are legal issues that one needs to take into consideration before rolling out a honeynet. Failing to take their legal issues to heart can change a honeynet from being an invaluable forensics tool into an expensive legal liability. Those in the corporate arena are well served to work with their legal counsel before deploying a honeynet.
Part 2 (chapters 9-15) goes into the important area of analysis. Collecting data, after all, is only the first part. Analyzing it and making sense of it all is the difference between an experienced detective and a Keystone Cop. The analogy is real in that a honeynet is a potential crime scene.
Data analysis and forensics are crucial in that it is the only way to interpret the various types of data involved. The key for those involved is turnout and extracting different types of data and turning that data into valuable information. Effective forensics enables digital investigators to know the difference between an innocuous attack and a malicious one.
While Part 2 is the most technical section of the book, Part 3 (chapters 16-21) attempts to explain the sociological reasons why whitehats and blackhats do what they do. Just as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs was able to profile Hannibal Lecter, knowing a profile of your adversary is crucial in containing the damage he can do. Identifying and understanding those attacking your system is just as important as the technical and analytical skills you will use in exposing them.
Know Your Enemy is a unique book in that it details how not to simply install and configure security devices, but how to use those devices to ensure a much greater level of security. It shows how you can take an offensive approach to computer security and to understand the mindset of the attacker. That is something not easily found in other books.
The CD-ROM that comes with the book includes 10 of the book's 21 chapters, a number of informative white papers, all of the open source tools that the authors use, and a video about honeynets.
Those who enjoyed Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll will similarly find KYE entertaining and invaluable.
The companion web site for the book is honeynet.org/book. In and of itself, it is a great website, and complements a great book.
Overall, KYE is a most informative book on a fascinating subject. Unlike many computer security books, KYE is light on theory and screen dumps, but heavy on valuable and useful information on security hosts and networks from adversaries. If you are looking for a proactive way to secure your corporate network, Know Your Enemy is the perfect place to start.
You can purchase Know Your Enemy : Learning about Security Threats (2nd Edition) from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
My dating guide for single guys.
We will be getting arrested on code profiling!
Programmer: I swear I didn't do it.
FBI: Well, you have a different style of formatting your code, we know it was you.
I remember the first KYE, and I remember the most annoying thing was the last section was a huge dump of IRC logs from a bunch of script kiddies. While it wasn't a bad thing to get to know the enemy, I don't think it warrants the whole last 1/3 of the book being dedicated to it, maybe as an appendix. From the authors description it sounds more like this book is geared towards the wonders of the Honeynet.
While "Chapter 8 (written by an attorney from the U.S. Dept. of Justice) concludes part one of the book with a look at the legal issues involved with honeynets. There are legal issues that one needs to take into consideration before rolling out a honeynet. Failing to take their legal issues to heart can change a honeynet from being an invaluable forensics tool into an expensive legal liability. Those in the corporate arena are well served to work with their legal counsel before deploying a honeynet." is legally a teriffic summary, could someone (legally) elaborate on the illegalities of honeypots and nets?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
So... my #1 suspected enemy is Winnie the Pooh!!!
Honeynet (noun): 1. Used to replace another noun indicating a network resource that has been Slashdotted in order to indicate slowness. Syn. Molassesnet, Ketchupnet. Ant. Local Area Network. Usage: "Fsking Slashdot! This place is a honeynet now."
Is it worth / recommended for the owner the first edition to buy/read the 2nd edition?
How does it compare to the "additional material" originally presented in Honeypots: Tracking Hackers by Lance Spitzner (member of Honeynet Project) which was to address the growing and changing nature of honeypots and the early evolution of honeynets?
but I wouldn't use it as a textbook on "knowing the enemy" in a modern network environment. Your comparison worries me enough to warrant me not buying the book you're reviewing..
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
Reminds me of what happened to Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation . I personally think that it's more of a challenge / territorial thing- that once hacked, you become motivated to try again without getting caught. Kind of like a Respawn... I agree with the article that the primary purpose is not to 'catch' the hamsters, but to learn their patterns as they race around in their safe little wheels.
As far as organizing the system, why not set it up like George Carlin's old joke - When they put you on hold, they play music. Why not just connect all the people on hold together, and let them talk to each other ?
For example, a daylight murder with a single bullet to the head is quite different from finding a decapitated and mutilated body in a ditch.
Perhaps, if you happen to be a crime scene investigator and are used to this. For me, both of the above items would fit quite nicely into the "Jesus Christ on a Popsicle Stick, I Just Found a Dead Body, HolyShitHolyShitHolyShit!" category.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
For example, a daylight murder with a single bullet to the head is quite different from finding a decapitated and mutilated body in a ditch.
Yikes - I hope you don't write the church newsletter.
1) Set up soda machine in office.
2) Track Mountain Dew purchases.
3) Use data to identify potential "troublemakers".
The link provided (http://www.honeynet.org/book/) gives two chapters of the book in PDF form. They are both well worth the read. Especially chapter 16 on profiling. WARNING: Like all works of sociology, it will make you realize that we are just monkeys.
Still haven't used the links? Here's an excerpt from ch.16 that I find beautiful. Subject is an analysis of the Jargon File, believe it or not...
One of the more surprising (and prominent) thematic categories to arise from the analysis is the magic/religion category. While this was one of the a priori thematic categories that we anticipated would emerge from the analysis, it is one that often surprises people who are not familiar with the hacker community. The most common comment that arises when this result is discussed is "You mean hackers are religious??? You've got to be kidding."
The answer to this quandary can be found in the nature of the technology that lies at the heart of this counterculture. Many members of the hacker community deal with complex operating systems, program applications, and network architectures where it is often not possible to answer with certainty the question "If I perform action A, will the operating system/program/network behave precisely with result B?" That is, because of the complexity of modern operating systems, programs, and network topologies, there is a disconnect between the classical forces of cause and effect. Whenever you have a situation where you cannot logically reconstruct the linkage between cause and effect, you in effect have an instance of "magic." (emphasis mine)
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
I think your example is probably close to what the book says (not having seen the book.) It's also a rather improbable scenario and seems to imply that if your honeypot/honeynet is vulnerable you bear some sort of liability that you wouldn't if it was just your desktop system that was abused in the same way. I don't understand that, and I also don't think such liability has ever been asserted in any case nor found to have existed by any court. I'm guessing the lawyer is Richard Salgado, who's issued this warning before. Notice that the nature of the warning he gives is that someone succeeds in committing abuse through your honeypot, which is not the goal when you set up the honeypot and is not normally what happens when you set up a honeypot. I think Salgado tries far too hard to find a problem where none exists - but then he's the lawyer, I'm not. (come to think of it, though, that's just how lawyers are.)
I don't think the wiretap laws apply: you aren't tapping a wire, you're watching traffic deliberately sent to your system. Your system, let me repeat.
I don't think entrapment applies (not even for law enforcement) the honeypot/honeynet is simply created, not advertised, and the felons seek it out on their own. That is not suggesting to someone that they commit a crime and then arresting them when they do. It's less a crime than for a shapely policewoman to wear a revealing red dress in a bar and then arrest a john who propositions her. If LEAs are worried about entrapment let them not set up honeypots. The book is for non-LEA people anyway.
P.S. I think that, many years ago, I saw that policewoman. Seriously.
Yeah, there's lots of them. here here here and here.