By Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Alan Schwartz
Third Edition
February 2003
Pages: 986
ISBN 10: 0-596-00323-4 |
ISBN 13: 9780596003234
(Average of 1 Customer Reviews)
This edition of Practical Unix & Internet Security provides detailed coverage of today's increasingly important security and networking issues. Focusing on the four most popular Unix variants today--Solaris, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD--this book contains new information on PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules), LDAP, SMB/Samba, anti-theft technologies, embedded systems, wireless and laptop issues, forensics, intrusion detection, chroot jails, telephone scanners and firewalls, virtual and cryptographic filesystems, WebNFS, kernel security levels, outsourcing, legal issues, new Internet protocols and cryptographic algorithms, and much more.
Full Description
- Computer security basics: introduction to security problems and solutions, Unix history and lineage, and the importance of security policies as a basic element of system security.
- Security building blocks: fundamentals of Unix passwords, users, groups, the Unix filesystem, cryptography, physical security, and personnel security.
- Network security: a detailed look at modem and dialup security, TCP/IP, securing individual network services, Sun's RPC, various host and network authentication systems (e.g., NIS, NIS+, and Kerberos), NFS and other filesystems, and the importance of secure programming.
- Secure operations: keeping up to date in today's changing security world, backups, defending against attacks, performing integrity management, and auditing.
- Handling security incidents: discovering a break-in, dealing with programmed threats and denial of service attacks, and legal aspects of computer security.
- Appendixes: a comprehensive security checklist and a detailed bibliography of paper and electronic references for further reading and research.
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition Review, August 21 2003
At just under 1,000 pages the 3rd edition of Practical Unix & Internet Security might look intimidating on the shelf, but a quick glance through the pages reveals that it is both practical and entertaining. With Slammer and Blaster making their way into the news it seemed like a good time to brush up on security. Already considered a classic reference, the 3rd edition of Practical Unix & Internet Security provides extensive updated information about topics like PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules), LDAP, forensics, intrusion detection, wireless devices, and cryptography.
Practical Unix & Internet Security is divided up into six sections:
The first sections covers the basics of computer security, tracing the history of Unix and security, as well as providing details of what should be in a good security policy.
The second section covers the building blocks of security, authentication, users and groups, filesystems, cryptography, physical security for servers, and personnel security.
Network and Internet security are focused on in the third section with emphasis on modems and dialup security, TCP/IP networks, securing TCP and UDP services, Sun RPC, NIS, Kerberos, LDAP, NFS, SAMBA, and finishing up with a chapter dedicated to secure programming techniques.
Day to day operations are the focus of the fourth section. Keeping up to date, making backups, defending accounts, using integrity checking tools, and auditing, logging, and forensics are all expanded upon in detail over 5 chapters.
The fifth section rounds off the main part of the book by describing how to handle security incidents. Special focus is given to discovering a break-in, protecting against programmed threats, Denial of Service Attacks (& DDoS), legal options, and a chapter on who you can trust.
The Appendixes make up the sixth and final section. Not a spot is wasted in the appendixes which begin with a Unix security checklist, and then outline Unix processes, provide both extensive paper and electronic resources, and conclude with a sub-section on security organizations.
Among the topics I found most interesting were: Access Control Lists (ACL), Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM), the section about 128-bit keys and dictionary-based passwords, connection laundering, honeypots, the false syslog example, and the example detailing a call to Microsoft's anti-piracy help line. The real-life examples scattered throughout Practical Unix & Internet Security keep the security sections from seeming overwhelming. This is one of the few books that I've found ever chapter of the appendix useful, so don't overlook them as simple reference pages.
Normally one-liners are reserved for movie discussions but for those who've already delved into Practical Unix & Internet Security here are a few of my favorite one-liners:
“...we do believe that making files readable and writable by everyone leads to many evil deeds.” - talking about the octal mode 666.
“Humidity is your computer's friend.” - just before static discharge kills your entire system.
“Beware of Key Employees.” - warning against making one person so key that their departure could cause your company irreparable harm.
“You mean, you don't really have a copy? [of Windows 98]” - the last part of a conversation with Microsoft's Anti-Piracy line. The company which called Microsoft's was tracing some intruders who had uploaded a copy of Windows 98 to the company's web site and was using the site to peddle warez. Microsoft was just about to launch Windows 98. The example shows just how clueless some help desks can be.
There are a few spelling mistakes and grammatical flaws but not enough to take away from the bulk of the information and no glaring omissions. UUCP coverage was dumped because UUCP simply is not a practical anymore now that more advanced alternatives like sendmail exist. I started glazing over material by the middle of the NIS chapter but it probably had more to do with the fact that I was thinking about the other 400 or so pages I had to read before I finished the main section of the book rather than the topic itself.
One of the great things about Practical Unix & Internet Security is that it is appropriate for a wide audience. There is relevant material for system administrators, security, company decision makers, even the guy sitting at the accounting terminal. Despite its massive size Practical Unix & Internet Security is entertaining enough to be read cover to cover. (It's good for the arm muscles too) Though it is easy to read beginners should probably reread their system manual before plunging headlong into this book. All in all Practical Unix & Internet Security continues to be one of those must have books for any Linux user.
Media reviews
"'Practical Unix & Internet Security, Third Edition'...is a classic that, like the proverbial farmer, is outstanding in it's field...'Practical Unix & Internet Security' remains the one-volume complete introduction to the basic issues of UNIX security...while profoundly technical and highly detailed, [this book] possesses a viewpoint well above the technical horizon...If you're in charge of security for any online UNIX system or systems, go to http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/puis3/inx.html and read the table of contents. You'll probably discover you could benefit from reading this uniquely useful and comprehensive volume that only improves with age."
--Jack Woehr, C/C++ Users Journal, February 2004
"Written by the team that defined the classic approaches to security...this comprehensive 1,000-page book provides the background, tools and suggestions from administrations needed to understand Unix and Internet security. The latest edition squeezes in much more information than the second. I particularly liked the detailed coverage of Mac OS X, which I haven't seen anywhere else. It's a worthy update."
--Vince Tuesday, "Computerworld," November 2003
"['Practical UNIX & Internet Security, Third Edition'] updates and revises this comprehensive classic for beginning to advanced administrators, with hands-on, applicable advice for securing UNIX and UNIX-like networks. While all examples are UNIX-specific, the underlying explanations of network security issues are useful overall. Its logical organization and clear explanations make it a good reference for larger libraries."
--Rachel Singer Gordon, Library Journal, October 1, 2003
