Hacking For Dummies, 4th Edition

Part IV

Hacking Operating Systems

In this part . . .

Now that you’re past the network level, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty — those fun operating systems you use on a daily basis and have come to both love and hate. I definitely don’t have enough room in this book to cover every operating system version or even every operating system vulnerability, but I certainly hit the important parts — especially the ones that aren’t easily fixed with patches.

This part starts by looking at the most widely used (and picked on) operating system — Microsoft Windows. From Windows NT to Windows 8 and Server 2012, I show you some of the best ways to attack these operating systems and secure them from the bad guys. This part then looks at Linux and its less publicized (yet still major) security flaws. Many of the hacks and countermeasures I cover can apply to many other flavors of UNIX as well.