Stealing The Network: How to Own the Box - Softcover

Syngress

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931836876 ISBN 13: 9781931836876

Publisher: Syngress, 2003

Synopsis

Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box is NOT intended to be a "install, configure, update, troubleshoot, and defend book." It is also NOT another one of the countless Hacker books out there. So, what IS it? It is an edgy, provocative, attack-oriented series of chapters written in a first hand, conversational style. World-renowned network security personalities present a series of 25 to 30 page chapters written from the point of an attacker who is gaining access to a particular system. This book portrays the "street fighting" tactics used to attack networks and systems.

• Not just another "hacker" book, it plays on "edgy" market success of Steal this Computer Book with first hand, eyewitness accounts
• A highly provocative expose of advanced security exploits
• Written by some of the most high profile "White Hats", "Black Hats" and "Gray Hats"
• Gives readers a "first ever" look inside some of the most notorious network intrusions

About this title

Review:

Stealing the Network is a book of science fiction. It's a series of short stories about characters who gain unauthorized access to equipment and information, or deny use of those resources to the people who are meant to have access to them. The characters, though sometimes well described, are not the stars of these stories. That honor belongs to the tools that the black-hat hackers use in their attacks, and also to the defensive measures arrayed against them by the hapless sysadmins who, in this volume, always lose. Consider this book, with its plentiful detail, the answer to every pretty but functionally half-baked user interface ever shown in a feature film.

One can read this book for entertainment, though its writing falls well short of cyberpunk classics like Burning Chrome and Snow Crash. Its value is in its explicit references to current technologies--Cisco routers, OpenSSH, Windows 2000--and specific techniques for hacking them (the heroes and heroines of this book are always generous with command-history dumps). The specific detail may open your eyes to weaknesses in your own systems (or give you some ideas for, ahem, looking around on the network). Alternately, you can just enjoy the extra realism that the detail adds to these stories of packetized adventure. --David Wall

From the Publisher:

In the real world, hackers go after the "low-hanging fruit." They take the least risk and go for the greatest reward. They often act alone or in small groups. They don’t have government funding or belong to world criminal organizations. What they do have is spare time and a lot of curiosity, and believe me, hacking takes a lot of time. Some of the best hackers spend months working on one exploit. At the end of all that work, the exploit may turn out to not be reliable or to not to function at all! Breaking into a site is the same way. Hackers may spend weeks performing reconnaissance on a site, only to find out there is no practical way in, so it’s back to the drawing board.

In movies, Hollywood tends to gloss over this fact about the time involved in hacking. Who wants to watch while a hacker does research and test bugs for weeks? It’s not a visual activity like watching bank robbers in action, and it’s not something the public has experience with and can relate to. In the movie "Hackers," the director tried to get around this by using a visual montage and some time- lapse effects. In "Swordfish," hacking is portrayed by drinking wine to become inspired to visually build a virus in one night. One of the oldest hacking movies, War Games, is the closest to reality on the big screen. In that movie, the main character spends considerable time doing research on his target, tries a variety of approaches to breaking in, and in the end, is noticed and pursued.

But what if ...? What would happen if the attackers were highly motivated and highly skilled? What if they had the guts and skills to perform sophisticated attacks? After a few drinks, these authors of the book you are holding in your hands are/were quick to speculate on what would be possible. Now, they have taken the time and effort to create ten stories exploring just what it would take to own the network.

About this edition

• Publisher: Syngress
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1931836876
• ISBN 13: 9781931836876
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328