Additional security material

[xerph]

I noticed O'reilly's Practial UNIX and Internet Security in the recommended security book list here and it seems like it would be a solid reference book to keep handy.

However, it was published in early 2003 so I have to wonder about whether some of the material might be slightly dated. I'd assume that the majority of the core concepts would be virtually unchanged, but because there is a 2.5 year gap between publication and the present I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to supplement it with something a little newer to make sure all the bases are covered.

Has anybody had any first hand experience with this book (or a good understanding of unix security) that may be able to shed some light on it for me?

Much appreciated.

[skroo]

Has anybody had any first hand experience with this book (or a good understanding of unix security) that may be able to shed some light on it for me?

It's still quite useful, particularly from an operational standpoint and in terms of the concepts it introduces. Realistically, though, there is no one book that is the Tao of Systems / Network Security - anyone looking at this or anything else from that standpoint is going to be sorely underinformed. Going to multiple reliable sources as frequently as possible is a good thing where security writing is concerned.

[Grond]

It's still quite useful, particularly from an operational standpoint and in terms of the concepts it introduces. Realistically, though, there is no one book that is the Tao of Systems / Network Security - anyone looking at this or anything else from that standpoint is going to be sorely underinformed. Going to multiple reliable sources as frequently as possible is a good thing where security writing is concerned.

Richard Bejtlich's book "The Tao of Network Security Monitoring" is another very good read. I don't always agree with Richard's viewpoints, but his log at http://taosecurity.blogspot.com is a good bookmark.

-g

[klepto]

I still have the first one, and it still useful. If you run only linux or bsd, then you're going to be stressed reading Practical Unix & Internet Security because they dont always cover the same topic for all nix type operating systems, so you have to research to find the equivalent or find that one doesn't exist.

I've spent alot of money on network security and security type books only to look back and realize that they are mostly useless books as they cover specific applications and versions. You are better off buying books on Operating Systems, programming, and maybe books that dedicates itself entirely to cover one aspect of hacking or one piece of software. Such as a snort book or a book on linux that covers suse, redhat,gentoo. If you use those operating systems.

But most people here aren't the .rpm distro crowd so our choices of books are limited as the books cover rpm distributions. You will find yourself in the same situation above with the P. Unix & Internet Security scenario.