Hacking Exposed - 5th Edition

Hacking Exposed has more or less established this entire genre of books. Now in its fifth edition, and having sold millions of copies throughout the world, the book is the number one best-selling computer security book and it is still just as useful and valuable as it ever was.

About The Book

Stuart McClure, George Kurtz and Joel Scambray have maintained the core of what makes Hacking Exposed indispensible and they have once again added to and updated the information to keep the book current with the latest attacks, exploits and hacker techniques.

Unlike the 4th Edition, this copy of Hacking Exposed does not include a DVD with video clips explaining the techniques. It does however contain new content on VoIP (voice over IP) hacking, Google hacking, Mac OS X hacks and more.

The basic format of the book remains the same. The beginning covers footprinting, scanning and enumeration to identify potential target systems. It then moves on to a section regarding system hacking, divided by Windows, Unix and Remote or VoIP hacking, a section on network hacking and a section on software hacking.

The chapter dedicated to hacking code, with contributions from Michael Howard, helps developers learn the ways flaws are introduced into software and how to prevent them.

The appendices list commonly used TCP and UDP ports and the services that use them as well as providing a graphic representation of the Top 14 Security Vulnerabilities.

My Review

George Kurtz, Stuart McClure and Joel Scambray have been a staple of my Information Security library since the first Hacking Exposed book. Things change quickly in the security world and the authors of Hacking Exposed - 5th Edition have done a tremendous job at taking a great thing and making it better by updating it with new attacks and countermeasures.

This edition of this classic book includes details about recent vulnerability exploits that have plagued the Internet including RPCSS (Blaster), LSASS (Sasser) and PCT (Download.ject). There is also a discussion of computer "zombies" and practical recommendations for how to protect your systems from zombie attacks.

There are a handful of books that should be "must-reads" for anyone responsible for computer or network security and this is one of them. Learning the information in this book will help you learn current attacks and hacking techniques and develop effective countermeasures to protect your network. Hands down, Hacking Exposed should be on every network or security administrators desk for quick reference.

Buy this book. Even if you already have a previous edition, the new and updated information in this book are well worth the investment.