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Malware: Fighting Malicious Code
The blurb on the back cover states that the book is "intended for system administrators, network personnel, security personnel, savvy home computer users, and anyone else interested in keeping their systems safe from attackers." It may seem a minor point, but that is a very broad range of people! However, the book is comprehensive enough to merit the claim. For example, the chapter on "malicious mobile code" (or "active content") includes tips on how to configure Internet Explorer's security settings (great for savvy home users), while the information presented on using group policies, Internet Explorer 6 Administration Kit and incorporating changes into Ghost SOE images would be more appropriate for system administrators. One can argue that system/network administrators already know all this, but let's face it; there are many who don't, or who need prompting. The book is particularly strong in explaining theory, like how different types of malware work, and it reminds me of a lot of university text books in layout. Each chapter has a Conclusions section, a summary and a list of references -- great for retention of knowledge, or to help if you are studying for an exam on the chapter. There is a reasonable amount of redundant information in the book; particularly in the "defence" section of each chapter, where file integrity checkers, bootable CDs with static binaries and the like are discussed.
"Malware" is a deliberately broad term, but it suits this book, which covers not just viruses, Trojan horses and worms, but also rootkits and BIOS microcode. The scope extends a bit beyond just fighting malicious code, Skoudis goes so far as analyzing how it works, how it has developed (from other malware) and speculated on the future of malicious code.
Malware is very readable, while still being technically accurate. It does not cover everything, but Skoudis has lots of great analogies, and quotes that range from such diverse sources as Stephen Hawking, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Wargames, Milli Vanilli and Styx. The book is written in a conversational and at times humourous style, and I am assuming a lot of the content has been presented in Skoudis's lectures.
Despite the practical approach of the book, the content is not exactly what you might expect. Skoudis's introduction says the book will focus on practicality: "we'll discuss time-tested, real-world actions you can take to secure your systems from attack." Why then in 700 pages is there barely a mention of how to configure a firewall? I think because there are so many applications covered, and because there is so much emphasis on all the fun and cute tools (like the sysinternals ones, and netcat) that some of the less exotic and useful ones suffer in omission.
The Introduction also says the book is operating-system agnostic. Both Windows and Linux are covered, true, but that's not a very broad slice: Solaris, HPUX, BSD, Tru64 and OS X barely get a mention. Even if the book is mostly aimed at home users, there are many using OS X, and in fact many using Mac OS, Windows 98 and even non-Intel platforms.
The illustrations are limited to diagrams, tables and screenshots, and while they are nothing fancy, most are quite clear and helpful.
There is no accompanying CD with the book, but there are so many tools covered in the text, chances are that many of would be quite out-of-date by now anyhow, so you are better off downloading them yourself. Skoudis has a web-site at counterhack.net/, and co-author Lenny Zeltser has one at zeltser.com/. The web sites are not limited to discussing this book, but are more about what Ed and Lenny have written lately, and the "Crack the Hacker Challenges" on Ed's site look fun. There's a list of references at the end of each chapter, and many sources refered to in the text (especially in the last 2 chapters), though I am surprised antivirus company web sites like f-secure, Sophos and CA weren't included; I have found the analyses there at least equal in accuracy and depth to those of McAfee, Trend and Symantec.
As far as bootable CDs for forensics and network security tasks, I'm surprised Trinux and Knoppix STD didn't score a mention, though normal Knoppix and FIRE are mentioned.
The chapter on malicious mobile code covers Java and ActiveX fairly evenly, but I think more emphasis on current threats is the way to go. (Particularly as there is so much FUD surrounding adware and how to remove it.)
One very general flaw with the book is that it tends to focus on the fancier stuff not just in its selection and description of security tooks, but in the actual malware discussed. The information on Code Red II and Bugbear.B is a noticeable exception to this, but many of the other viruses that are discussed -- like Kallisti, Tristate, PHP.Pirus, and Win2k.Stream -- are anything but common.
All that said, I haven't seen any other books that provide such great explanations of rootkits, malicious mobile code or adware, but also hint at things to come like Flash/Warhol worms and microcode malware. This book fills a void in that it covers current malware (with some historical perspective) with enough analogies, scenarios and "detective work" to hold the reader's interest. Hopefully readers will be inspired by the enthusiasm that Skoudis and Zeltser obviously have for fighting malware, and will use this book as a stepping stone to learn more and beat the malware that seems all too prevalent on today's Internet.
You can purchase Malware: Fighting Malicious Code 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.
Solaris, HPUX, BSD, Tru64 and OS X barely get a mention ... because I can barely keep the damn worms off my Tru64 box...
http://zero-to-enterprise.blogspot.com/
Seriously all you need is to use your brain and think. The problem is many users tend to install stuff without a second thought it's like inviting a stranger to your house.
Gentoo isn't exactly easy to get installed the first time. Particularly if you've been a Windows user for life, watching pages of compiler messages fly by isn't exactly an inviting experience.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Well aren't you the least helpful help desk guy ever? Do you think that if the so called "lusers" can't keep viri and spyware off of their Windows boxen they could possibly hope to install Gentoo?
"Hmm... I didn't know anything about my magical beige box before, but now with Gentoo I suddenly know exactly what a partition scheme and compiling are, and I haven't even popped the disk into the music slot on my computer yet!"
Being a jerk helps nothing.
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
Well reviewed, my good man/woman/thing...
It's good to see a seemingly well thought out book on the topic of detection and removal of "malware".
The majority of tech calls I get from family and friends involve something malicious or just downright irritating landing on someone's computer (strangely, usually a Win32 box...well, not that strange, considering...), which I end up having to track down and de-couple...which can sometimes be a rather lengthy process, especially where the offending piece has been based on some of the older, smarter virii which spread themselves all over the place just to make sure it takes you a clean floppy or about 4 reboots to remove (re-deleting each re-replaced thing each time). *remember to breath, gazz*
I've longed for a return to the days when I used to only find a blown PSU.....like, 1996....
Good to see chapters on general system "hardening" as well as some more in-depth stuff.
Saying all that, it can be great fun cleaning out a "scr00d" system.
it's the taking apart that counts
When I was a university student, the school had a site liscence for Norton Antivirus. As a student you could install it free of charge, and it would LiveUpdate as well to stay current. In fact LiveUpdate was just out and a new good thing. The key was that having a defense against a "majority" of malware as seen by most was not enough. Users still required education on what was causing their problems. Most users did not want the time to learn about security on their machine. This meant that people were hacking other boxes on campus, people were setting up malicious websites on their own machines, people were setting up malicious websites using university resources. (my favorite was a java script "Click here for a good time" and it would try to format the harddrive!!)
The university then started a newsletter that all tech support staff, department heads and administrative staff were supposed to subscribe to. This newsletter would detail technology happenings on campus, planned outages, maintence, a short security blurb, calls open/closed/pending, a blurb about not opening attachments unless you know the source, and much else.
There were always some warnings about attachments and security on the internet.
Several one-shot free classes were set up for all people at the university. Show up, learn about WHY you don't surf porn. Learn why all these things that were "bad" are considered such.
After about 2 years of this the major problems with viruses and infected attachments started noticabling dropping off to the point of very few calls were about a virus type issue..only a few a week instead of a few a day. Then I graduated.
I understand that most tech staff cannot schedule resources like a university can, but having a tech newsletter for an organization is good, as well as having tech instruction to the low level usere who don't see anything other than a magic box of fun!
Having books like this is an obvious good thing, and I may consider going and getting a copy even though I am not doing tech support anymore.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Gentoo? For general, non-geek, Windows users? Maybe something easier, such as Mandrake or Ubuntu, but if they cannot keep malware off their computers, there is probably no way they're able to install Gentoo, let alone any other Linux distribution. Rather, you should give them a suite of the following:
There. That should solve nearly all of their malware problems without having to move to another OS.
*nix may be immune to Windows worms, viruses, and other scum, but it surely isn't immune from clueless lusers. Now, I'm not a MS apologist; I am a FreeBSD user. However, if *nix gets a clueless user base and starts doing stupid things (such as running as root), then all they have to do to get thier computers hozed is for someone to download "Free Britney Spears screensavers for Linux," which turns out to be nothing more than a script that has "rm -r /*" in it. *nix may be more secure than Windows, but it isn't "foolproof," either.