Essential Cybersecurity Science

Preface

Who This Book Is For

Science applies to many areas of cybersecurity, and the target audience for this book is broad and varied. This book is particularly for developers, engineers, and entrepreneurs who are building and evaluating cybersecurity hardware and software solutions. Among that group, it is for infosec practitioners such as forensic investigators, malware analysts, and other cybersecurity specialists who use, build, and test new tools for their daily work. Some will have programming experience, others a working knowledge of various security tools (EnCase for forensics, Wireshark for network analysis, IDA Pro for reverse engineering, and so on). The scientific method can be applied to all of these disciplines. Cybersecurity science can be applied to everyday problems, including:

• Testing for bugs in your new smartphone game

• Defending corporate security choices given a limited budget

• Convincing people that your new security product is better than the competition’s

• Balancing intrusion detection accuracy and performance

The core audience is information security professionals who have worked in the field for 5−10 years, who are becoming experts in their craft and field, who are not formally trained in or exposed to scientific investigation in their daily lives, and who desire to learn a new approach that supplements and improves their work. I want you to walk away from this book knowing how to conduct scientific experiments on your everyday tools and procedures, and knowing ...