eBook Practical Hacking - Techniques and Countermeasures

Preface

The entire purpose of Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures is to give readers the opportunity to actually put their hands on the tools and techniques commonly used by today’s hackers and to actually learn how they work. Up to this point, most security-related books have dealt mainly with the theory and lecture of tools and techniques, but I wanted to provide more. With the use of virtual computers the reader can concentrate on the tools instead of the question of legality. As a former college department chair I saw firsthand how students responded to hands-on security versus lecture only. By providing my students with a series of labs structured around security, hacking techniques, and countermeasures the students gained an invaluable insight as to how to secure today’s computers and associated networks. This is evident by these students being placed at the Pentagon, in our armed forces, as government contractors, and even independent security consultants. I truly believe that when a security professional understands the actual techniques, he or she can provide a better service to the public. Fifteen years ago the standard for security was “security by obscurity,” in
other words, “You don’t know I have a network therefore I’m safe.” With the advent of the Internet this quickly changed. However, even today there are those who when questioned about their security practices respond with “Hey, we’re not a bank” or “I don’t have anything worth stealing.” These people are only delaying the inevitable reality that eventually someone of ill-repute will find their computers or even their networks and take full advantage of them if they haven’t already. Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures is designed as a lab manual. I want every reader to be able to duplicate each lab in this book, which is why I insisted that the inclusion of the CD containing the exact same versions of the tools be used to create this book. This is the first book in a series of books designed to educate security professionals or anyone with an interest in how hacking techniques are conducted, and what countermeasures are available. Hundreds of screenshots are included, which duplicate each lab and are easy to follow. It was also important for me to create Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures from the ground-up perspective. As you progress through the book the techniques and tools become progressively more advanced and follow the standard methodology of how an attacker would approach your own network or computer. I also designed Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures to use the exact same tools used by today’s hacker. This is by no means a conclusive list because tools are added or become obsolete all the time, however, I have provided an excellent foundation for every reader to practice his or her security skills and the reality is most tools used by hackers are either open source (free), custom written (programmer), stolen (warez), or a combination of all three. The accompanying CD provides 95 percent free tools and demo or trial versions of commercially available security software. I have also developed a Web site for Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures to support my readers, as well as inform them of upcoming books, special offers, my schedule of security seminar locations, HackSym, and a members section that provides tools, advanced portions of the next book in production, forums to assist in any lab questions, a live chat area where I will schedule and make appearances, and much more. The Web site is located at http://www.virtuallyhacking.com. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading
Practical Hacking Techniques and Countermeasures as much as I enjoyed writing it. Beginners will find it intriguing while veteran security professionals will find it to be an excellent reference tool. There is something for everyone.

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