by Bruce Schneier
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Product Description
Bestselling author Bruce Schneier offers his expert guidance on achieving security on a network
Internationally recognized computer security expert Bruce Schneier offers a practical, straightforward guide to achieving security throughout computer networks. Schneier uses his extensive field experience with his own clients to dispel the myths that often mislead IT managers as they try to build secure systems. This practical guide provides readers with a better understanding of why protecting information is harder in the digital world, what they need to know to protect digital information, how to assess business and corporate security needs, and much more.
* Walks the reader through the real choices they have now for digital security and how to pick and choose the right one to meet their business needs
* Explains what cryptography can and can't do in achieving digital security
Amazon.com Review
Whom can you trust? Try Bruce Schneier, whose rare gift for common sense makes his book Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World both enlightening and practical. He's worked in cryptography and electronic security for years, and has reached the depressing conclusion that even the loveliest code and toughest hardware still will yield to attackers who exploit human weaknesses in the users. The book is neatly divided into three parts, covering the turn-of-the-century landscape of systems and threats, the technologies used to protect and intercept data, and strategies for proper implementation of security systems. Moving away from blind faith in prevention, Schneier advocates swift detection and response to an attack, while maintaining firewalls and other gateways to keep out the amateurs. Newcomers to the world of Schneier will be surprised at how funny he can be, especially given a subject commonly perceived as quiet and dull. Whether he's analyzing the security issues of the rebels and the Death Star in Star Wars or poking fun at the giant software and e-commerce companies that consistently sacrifice security for sexier features, he's one of the few tech writers who can provoke laughter consistently. While moderately pessimistic on the future of systems vulnerability, he goes on to relieve the reader's tension by comparing our electronic world to the equally insecure paper world we've endured for centuries--a little smart-card fraud doesn't seem so bad after all. Despite his unfortunate (but brief) shill for his consulting company in the book's afterword, you can trust Schneier to dish the dirt in Secrets and Lies. --Rob Lightner
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Theory of Security, 2008-07-05
I bought this title as a bundle with "Applied Cryptography" and "Practical Cryptography". I still need to read those 2 titles, but I have read "Secrets and Lies" (SL) cover to cover. My approach to reading this was that SL was that I would read the theory behind the security to start my studies on security, hacking, and cryptography. And this is just what this book is: an description of security. It is sort of like reading a book on math that describes the beauty of math, but does not list the math or have any problems for the reader to do. The reader learns the history, types of math, and interesting facts on how math can solve problems, but for further study is going to have to get a book with math problems. So the reader shouldn't expect this book to be a tech manual.
I really like this book because it shows how to think about security. The whole book is on this subject, but an example would be when he describes security in layers. He states that prevention attacks will fail, because you can't defend against every attack. So you need an instant alert that tells when you are under an attack. The sooner you know about the attack the faster you can respond. So that is prevention, detection, and response.
A weakness in prevention is people pick wrong passwords, freely give information, and don't understand the security measures. So no matter how strong you security is it is only as strong as the weakest link. Strong encryption may do well against brut force attacks, but attackers cheat. They find ways of getting around the encryption.
An example is an encrypted telephone. It would take a lot of knowledge, but if a Denial of Service attack was done on the encrypted line so the phone didn't work the "people" are going to use a regular line which can be eavesdropped on.
The book has thousands of ideas. Many much profound that is. Now that I read it, in the future I will reread sections to see what I have learned in my self-study.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Book, 2008-03-24
Excellent book. A must read for any IT professional. The first 1/3 of the book is a little slow to get going for those already familiar with security concept such as CIA.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A little old but still good, 2008-02-15
Unfortunately books on the topics of technology don't age as well as homer's masterpieces. I still found Secrets and Lies to be a good book, though it's technology is a bit out of date. S&L provides a very good review of network security in a non text book format that is enjoyable to read. The examples and stories told in the book make it very clear to the reader the need for a tight network security policy in this day and age.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A little dated but still essential reading, 2007-09-12
More people should read this book - it would greatly help to make computers and physical property more secure! A comprehensive approach and easy to understand; I immediately started changing things based on the read.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Great Read, 2007-07-06
If you are going to read only one security title this is the book. Bruce tells it like it is in an easy to read manner. 5 stars!
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