Computer Security for the Home and Small Office

Rating:
Summary: Densely-packed with good information
Review: Computer Security for the Home and Small Office by Thomas C. Greene is a densely-packed book, full of very good information. Mr. Greene has compiled a detailed list of potential threats complete with solutions. He covers everything from external attacks by hackers, to the possibility of someone taking your hard-drive and mining valuable information from it.

Computer Security starts by discussing firewalls. It gives a very clear explanation of how they work, so you know what they are and are not capable of. It continues by explaining the basics of "Hackproofing". He gives a reasonably balanced approach between sticking with Windows, or moving to Linux.

Thomas goes into great detail on how to replace Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) with the open-source Mozilla browser. A number of pages are devoted to the step-by-step locking down of Mozilla. I was disappointed that tightening IE wasn't even mentioned. Mind you, all of what I've described so far only covers the introduction to the book!

The next (first) chapter describes the "Dark Side" of the Internet. Hackers, crackers, and script kiddies, along with their worms, viruses and Trojan horses are clearly explained. He also gives an in-depth example of exactly how a hacker could obtain your information. Following chapters describe the various avenues of attack and how to defend against them, including very nice lists of Windows and Linux services that are suspect and should be shut down.

Chapter 3 discusses Social Engineering. This may be the most important chapter for most business users to read. Technology, no matter how tight, will never stand up to an attack made through an unsuspecting user via social engineering. Chapter 4 is a crash course on TCP/IP ports, the underlying processes that open them, encryption technology (PGP and GPG), and the use of the Secure Shell (SSH), and chapter 5 talks about how to hide all traces of unencrypted data on your hard drive. If the laptop got stolen, you'd certainly want to make sure that no one could glean proprietary information from anywhere on it.

The following chapter is a 14-page diatribe of how Microsoft views Linux as the enemy, and how it tries to suppress its proliferation. While interesting, I felt it was out of place in this book.

The last numbered chapter is carefully crafted to make you very paranoid . Thomas discusses a lot of the political wrangling over security. Obviously, the harder you make it for a hacker to gather information from your computer, the harder law enforcement organizations would have, too. Most governmental officials view that as a very bad thing.

Finally, there are three appendices with plenty of valuable information. Appendix B alone is 90 pages of distilled treasure.

I have to say that you cannot go wrong buying this book. There were a few areas where Thomas Greene seemed to go on a tangent, and not 100% in keeping with the theme of the rest of the book. That marred an other-wise perfect tome. I give this 4 out of 5 stars.


Rating:
Summary: Lucid and nontechnical
Review: Greene devotes his attention to those of you who are not full time computer professionals, and who lack a corporate IT staff to do the dirty work for you. He supposes that it is just you, and possibly your family, with your own machines. These days, for your context, he focuses on computers with a Microsoft or linux operating systems. Sadly, he gives little mention to Apple, though this has a devoted but small following.

He does not just discuss strict technical issues about, say, choosing the right secure settings for OpenSSH. If you don't know what that means, don't worry. In fact, it might mean that you could use this book.

Greene also goes into extended discussions of issues with some security aspects, but are not solely that. Like the merits of linux versus Microsoft. An entire chapter is devoted to this crucial topic. In this sense, the book's title is overly narrow. What he offers is a good discussion of topics you need to be aware of with your machine.

And he can certainly write fluently. This is not a hardcore technical book, with arcane commands and intricate procedures. Most of the book is straight prose that flows. There is a relative dearth of figures. Correctly so. The topics are often not tied to specific applications, where you might need diagrams to show how to go from one screen to another.

Which means there is actually another source of readers for this book. If you are well educated, but just not in computing. For whatever reason, you want a lucid, nontechnical explanation of important computer issues faced by many people. So perhaps consider this book?

Rating:
Summary: Very Informative and Helpful
Review: I am a home user. Greene's book is very instructive and untwists much of the complex structure of computer security. It is well written and witty in places. His detailed modifications to Win XP would have been nice to incorporate but I am a Win 98 user.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for novices
Review: I have to admit that when I just started reading the book, I only hoped to find the entertaining read, written by a cool and famous technology journalist. However, it looks like I was up for a pleasant surprise and the book was way better than that, event delivering some new material on security.

It is important to note that the book is not targeted for security experts in its coverage of material, but presents a clearly written and entertaining "story" of computer security. It covers threats and vulnerabilities, social and technical issues, various platforms (focusing on Linux and Windows). The book possesses a noticeable anti-Windows bias, justified by security history of this platform. Open source solutions such as Linux and Mozilla are recommended by the author. In fact, he implies that in the ideal world only experts should be allowed to run Windows (since it is so hard to secure), while the rest should go with Linux, which is more transparent and behaves predictably (which greatly contributes to its security).

The book offers an amazing breadth of coverage, starting from simple Linux and Windows security tips all the way to malware (such as spyware, viruses and worms), basics of security risk analysis, privacy abuses, erasing trace of activity from computers and even "cyberterrorism". I also liked how well the author presented encryption - usually a difficult subject for security novices.

Highly recommended for those curious about computer security and pretty much everyone using a computer (and, thus likely fighting malware and various bugs). At times, the book does go to more in-depth subjects such as NAT, Windows registry and Linux file system structure, but even in those areas the style seems perfectly acceptable for a security neophyte.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH is a Senior Security Analyst with a major security information management company. He is the author of the book "Security Warrior" (O'Reilly, 2004). His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

Rating:
Summary: Good material with definite biases...
Review: I recently finished reading and reviewing the book Computer Security for the Home and Small Office by Thomas C. Greene (Apress). While it does seem to lose focus a bit towards the end and has a definite bias (which I agree with!), the overall content and information is vital to know and understand.

The chapter breakdown:
Introducing the Dark Side; Vectors; Social Engineering; From Newbie to Power User; Treasure Hunt; The Open-Source Escape Hatch; Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing; Glossary; Procedures, Processes, and Ports; Online Resources; Index

First off, this is a highly readable and interesting book on how to secure your computer systems against attacks and keep your data private. The author is very vocal in his opinions, and you'll quickly learn where those biases are. He is a major proponent of using Linux and ditching Windows. The only reason you should use IE is because you're forced to. Even with that, he does go into each system and explain in detail what you need to do in order to harden your system. This includes shutting down unnecessary services, running anti-virus software, and using firewalls. All the stuff you'd expect to see in a book like this, and he delivers. The detail is sufficient for most intermediate users to follow, and after you're done you'll have a system that most script kiddies will bypass as it's not worth the time or effort to crack.

Starting in the Trust Nothing chapter, he starts to rant about how security is portrayed in the media, along with the potential conflicts of interest between vunerabilities and the companies who fix them. While interesting material, the focus on home/small office seems to get lost in the mix. I don't know if it's just the style of the writing or what, but I was starting to wonder if we could just move on...

Windows bashers will love the book, Windows defenders will think he's overly critical of the platform. Either way, this is material you can't afford to ignore in today's environment.

Rating:
Summary: Good material with definite biases...
Review: I recently finished reading and reviewing the book Computer Security for the Home and Small Office by Thomas C. Greene (Apress). While it does seem to lose focus a bit towards the end and has a definite bias (which I agree with!), the overall content and information is vital to know and understand.

The chapter breakdown:
Introducing the Dark Side; Vectors; Social Engineering; From Newbie to Power User; Treasure Hunt; The Open-Source Escape Hatch; Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing; Glossary; Procedures, Processes, and Ports; Online Resources; Index

First off, this is a highly readable and interesting book on how to secure your computer systems against attacks and keep your data private. The author is very vocal in his opinions, and you'll quickly learn where those biases are. He is a major proponent of using Linux and ditching Windows. The only reason you should use IE is because you're forced to. Even with that, he does go into each system and explain in detail what you need to do in order to harden your system. This includes shutting down unnecessary services, running anti-virus software, and using firewalls. All the stuff you'd expect to see in a book like this, and he delivers. The detail is sufficient for most intermediate users to follow, and after you're done you'll have a system that most script kiddies will bypass as it's not worth the time or effort to crack.

Starting in the Trust Nothing chapter, he starts to rant about how security is portrayed in the media, along with the potential conflicts of interest between vunerabilities and the companies who fix them. While interesting material, the focus on home/small office seems to get lost in the mix. I don't know if it's just the style of the writing or what, but I was starting to wonder if we could just move on...

Windows bashers will love the book, Windows defenders will think he's overly critical of the platform. Either way, this is material you can't afford to ignore in today's environment.

Rating:
Summary: As timely as it is up-to-date and "user friendly"
Review: It seems like every few weeks there are fresh announcements of invasions by computer viruses, worms, identity thefts, spam scams, and other unwanted (often destructive) incursion attempts through the internet. Computer Security For The Home And Small Office by computer security expert Thomas C. Greene is as timely as it is up-to-date and "user friendly". The informed and informative text is organized into seven chapters: Introducing the Dark Side; Vectors; Social Engineering; From Newbie to Power User; Treasure Hunt: The Open-Source Escape Hatch; Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing. Enhanced with a glossary, and appendices on "Procedures, Processes, and Ports" and "Online Resources", Computer Security For The Home And Small Office is a compendium of immediately applicable information presented with a minimum of jargon so that even the most novice of beginners can take steps to insure against the successful invasion of their privacy; protect their systems and databases from exterior corruption; and defend against any form of attack or unwanted intrusion. Every personal, professional, corporate, and community library system should have on hand a reference copy of Thomas Greene's Computer Security For The Home And Small Office.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent security overview
Review: Medical treatment for a child is considerably different than it is for an adult. Similarly, securing a global enterprise network is quite different than computer security for a smaller organization. With that Computer Security for the Home and Small Office provides a good overview to the core areas of information security.

Most small businesses don't have staff with adequate computer security skills at their disposal, and as a result, their computer systems are most often at risk. Novice hackers will target such networks as a stepping stone, before moving on to larger, more secured corporate systems.

The book is technical in nature, but quite decipherable for the reader without a strong background in computers and security. In plain English, the book details not only potential security threats, but tips on how to avoid them and recover from them.

The seven chapter of the book cover important security topics such as firewalls, Internet browsers, Windows & Linux security, email and spam, viruses and worms, network hardening, and more.

Chapter 3 discusses social engineering, which is of special interest to everyone, especially small businesses. Security technology can only help so much. But all of the hardware and software in the world will never be able to defend against an attack made through an unsuspecting user via social engineering.

The book provides a lot of extra background material on security that elucidates the reader, and let's them better understand the real threats that are facing their systems. By better understanding the threats, the reader can more effectively secure their systems.

Computer Security for the Home and Small Office demystifies many murky security concepts and shows the reader that they can secure their computer systems without an engineering degree.




Rating:
Summary: Good Intro To Security
Review: Thomas Greene is most well known for his articles on cybercrime, network and computer security and other information technology subjects for the British tech newspaper The Register. As Associate Editor and journalist for The Register he has a developed a distinctive style and a great reputation.

I have long said that more focus needs to be given to providing security tools and education to the home and small office computer user. Corporations have teams of people and expansive budgets to implement layered security solutions with administrators to monitor and enforce them, but home and small office users have neither the knowledge they need nor the budget to throw blindly into security.

Ironically, all of the money and effort corporations put into computer and network security could be rendered useless if a particularly virulent worm infects the millions of unprotected home users and bogs the Internet down to the point of crippling it.

Greene has seen this same gap in security and wrote this book to fill that gap. He covers a broad range of security topics in language and terms designed for computer security novices to be able to grasp and understand.

One thing this book does that is admirable is that it goes beyond the simple security and recommends open source and alternative solutions- even debating the use of Linux over Windows, giving the user an in depth look at their options.

Home users need this information and I recommend they check this book out.

Tony Bradley is a consultant and writer with a focus on network security, antivirus and incident response. He is the About.com Guide for Internet / Network Security (http://netsecurity.about.com), providing a broad range of information security tips, advice, reviews and information. Tony also contributes frequently to other industry publications. For a complete list of his freelance contributions you can visit Essential Computer Security (http://www.tonybradley.com).