'Hacking Linux Exposed' is in a totally different category than 'Catch Me IF You Can'.
If you want a great Linux security book, then HLE is totally awesome. (I'm on chapter 4 right now, reading thoughroughly (sp?) but have read chunks of most of the later chapters in bits and pieces already.)
If you want a book that has great real life examples of hacks and cracks, HLE has them (the case studies, as well as stuff throughout the book). I'd also recomend "Hackers Challenge" which has some great case studies.
But if you want examples of nothing but social engineering, these are not the ones you want. The Mitnick book might be good - haven't read it. (It's specifically *not* based on real events, but is by a guy who can use his imagination based on real events.)
I'm in the middle of reading "Hacking Linux Exposed" second edition right now, and am in chapter 4, which deals with social engineering, trojans, and other tricks like that. It has a burch of examples of social engineering tricks. My favorite is this one. (Spelling errors are mine, if any.)
For example, at one university dormitory, someone placed a big sheet of paper in the lobby, which read as follows:
Password Contest!
Want to show your creativity? Want to win a prize? List your campus username and password here we ll be giving out free school football merchandise to the top five most original and witty passwords. Standard UNIX password rules apply no more than eight characters, case sensitive and the password must be verifiable by our judges.
There wasn't anything indicating who put up the sheet or where the prizes were coming from, yet within a day, more than 50 usernames and passwords were written on the sheet. The accounts were accessed hundreds of times from all over the globe almost instantly.
It lists a bunch of different categories of social engineering, and typical examples of how a baddie might use them successfully to breach security. Very enlightening.
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If you want a great Linux security book, then HLE is totally awesome. (I'm on chapter 4 right now, reading thoughroughly (sp?) but have read chunks of most of the later chapters in bits and pieces already.)
If you want a book that has great real life examples of hacks and cracks, HLE has them (the case studies, as well as stuff throughout the book). I'd also recomend "Hackers Challenge" which has some great case studies.
But if you want examples of nothing but social engineering, these are not the ones you want. The Mitnick book might be good - haven't read it. (It's specifically *not* based on real events, but is by a guy who can use his imagination based on real events.)