Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think

Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think
| 2009-05-06 00:00:00 | | 0 | Computer Security


In this thought-provoking anthology, today's security experts describe bold and extraordinary methods used to secure computer systems in the face of ever-increasing threats. Beautiful Security features a collection of essays and insightful analyses by leaders such as Ben Edelman, Grant Geyer, John McManus, and a dozen others who have found unusual solutions for writing secure code, designing secure applications, addressing modern challenges such as wireless security and Internet vulnerabilities, and much more. Among the book's wide-ranging topics, you'll learn how new and more aggressive security measures work--and where they will lead us. Topics include: Rewiring the expectations and assumptions of organizations regarding security
Security as a design requirement
Evolution and new projects in Web of Trust
Legal sanctions to enforce security precautions
An encryption/hash system for protecting user data
The criminal economy for stolen information
Detecting attacks through context

Go beyond the headlines, hype, and hearsay. With Beautiful Security, you'll delve into the techniques, technology, ethics, and laws at the center of the biggest revolution in the history of network security. It's a useful and far-reaching discussion you can't afford to miss.

User review
A solid set of case histories and examples of how to build better security measures
BEAUTIFUL SECURITY: LEADING SECURITY EXPERTS EXPLAIN HOW THEY THINK provides a collection of essays on digital security and comes from experts who explain how social networking and other popular trends hurt online security efforts - and how to design new networks around these trends. Analysis of criminal attempts and logic patterns offer network security libraries a solid set of case histories and examples of how to build better security measures. Highly recommended.



User review
Well-written with broad coverage of a critical topic
Like O'Reilly's Beautiful Teams, this book's a series of essays by industry experts, this time focused on security. The various authors do a great job of covering topics from social engineering to forcing firms to focus on security. The chapters are all well-written, although a few do better jobs of keeping the material interesting and flowing.


You'll find plenty of security-related history in the book. Phil Zimmerman's chapter on PGP's Web Of Trust is one example. Pieter Zatko's discussion of his work on the LH0phtCrack is another. Both stories help expose mindsets which, sadly, haven't changed a whole lot.


Security, as with testing or overall quality, is at its most fundamental roots a culture issue. Not every story focuses on this aspect, but pointing out bad culture is a common theme through many of the chapters. Zatko's discussion of `Learned Helplessness,` John McManus's Security by Design, and Jim Routh's Forcing Firms to Focus are all great reads on this line. Many of the stories correctly emphasize that security isn't just about someone hacking code - it's a much broader issue.


As with any good security book, there's plenty of well-done content which will likely scare you in to re-thinking how you and your company approach security. Beautiful Security can help you identify practices, problems, and mindsets which leave you, your company, or your clients at risk.


Overall it's a very useful, highly readable book on a critical subject.

User review
A Resilient Text
Beautiful Security goes well beyond the confines of traditional security books that dive into technical minutia and bore you to tears. Yes there is technical jargon to be seen throughout, but the real hook to this collection of ideas and best practices is the thinking and logic the various contributors gracefully convey through the pages within. A section that spoke about an issue on my desk at the moment was the Improving Perspective with Host Logging - specifically the section regarding building a more resilient detection model.

User review
An eye-opening book that will challenge you
Books that collect chapters from numerous expert authors often fail to do more than be a collection of disjointed ideas. Simply combining expert essays does not always make for an interesting, cohesive read. Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think is an exception to that and is definitely worth a read. The books 16 chapters provide an interesting overview to the current and future states of security, risk and privacy. Each chapter is written by an established expert in the field and each author brings their own unique insights and approach to information security.


A premise of the book is that most people don't give security much attention until their personal or business systems are attacked or breached. The book notes that criminals often succeed by exercising enormous creativity when devising their attacks. They think outside of the box which the security people built to keep them out. Those who create defenses around digital assets must similarly use creativity when designing an information security solution.


Unfortunately, far too few organizations spend enough time thinking creatively about security. More often than not, it is simply about deploying a firewall and hoping the understaffed security team can deal with the rest of the risks.


The 16 essays, arranged in no particular theme are meant to show how fascinating information security can be. This is in defense to how security is often perceived, as an endless series of dialogue boxes and warnings, or some other block to keep a user from the web site or device they want to access. Each of the 16 essays is well-written, organized and well-argued. The following 4 chapter are particularly noteworthy.


Chapter 3 is titled Beautiful Security Metrics and details how security metrics can be effectively used, rather than simply being a vehicle for creating random statistics for management. Security metrics are a critical prerequisite for turning IT security into a science, instead of an art. With that, author Elizabeth Nichols notes that the security profession needs to change in ways that emulate the medical professional when it comes to metrics. She notes specifically that security must develop a system of vital signs and generally accepted metrics in the same way in which physicians work. The chapter also provides excellent insights on how to use metrics and how metrics, in addition to high-level questions that can be used to determine how effective security is within an organization.


Chapter 6 deals with online-advertising and the myriad problems in keeping it honest. Author Benjamin Edelman observed a problem with the online supply chain world, as opposed to brick and mortar (BAM) world, in that BAM companies have long-established procurement departments with robust internal controls, and carefully trained staff who evaluate prospective vendors to confirm legitimacy. In the online world, predominantly around Google AdSense, most advertisers and advertising networks lack any comparable rigor for evaluating their vendors. That has created a significant avenue for online advertising fraud, of which the on-line advertising is a victim to.


Edelman writes that he has uncovered hundreds of online advertising scams defrauding hundreds of thousands of users, in addition to the merchants themselves. The chapter details many of the deceptive advertisements that he has found, and shows how often web ads that tout something for free, is most often far from it.


Chapter 7 is about the PGP and the evolution of the PGP web of trust scheme. The chapter is written by PGP creator Phil Zimmerman, and current PGP CTO Jon Callas. It has been a long while since Zimmerman has written anything authoritative about PGP, so the chapter is a welcome one. Zimmerman and Callas note that while a lot has been written about PGP, much of it though containing substantial inaccuracies. The chapter provides invaluable insights into PGP and the history and use of cryptography. It also gives a thorough overview of the original PGP web of trust model, and recent enhancements bring PGP's web of trust up to date.


Chapter 9 is one of the standout chapters in the book. Mark Curphrey writes about the need to get people, processes and technology to work together so that the humans involved in information security can make better decisions. In the chapter, Curphrey deals with topical issues such as cloud computing, social networks, security economics and more. Curphrey notes that when he starts giving a presentation, he does it with the following quotation from Upton Sinclair -- `it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it`. He uses the quote to challenge listeners (and readers in this case) to question the reason why they are being presented the specific ideas, which serves as a reminder of common, subtle biases for thoughts and ideas presented as fact.


In its 250 pages, Beautiful Security is both a fascinating an enjoyable read. There are numerous security books that weight a few pounds a use reams of paper, that don't have a fraction of the real content that Beautiful Security has. With other chapters from industry luminaries such as Jim Routh, Randy Sabett, Anton Chuvakin and others, Beautiful Security is a required read.


For those that have an interest in information security or those that are frustrated by it, Beautiful Security is an eye-opening book that will challenge you, and change the way you think about information security. It is a good book for those whose who think information security is simply about deploying hardware, and an even better book for those who truly get information security.

User review
Beautiful Security is Timely, Important and Readable
Beautiful Security is full of pertinent information for all of us. The book is well written, covers topics we need to know about, is very readable. Start with the first entry by Mudge: his perspective is accurate and revealing and of course he writes well so enjoy the new insights you gain by reading this book. Highly recommended.