About the Book:

The sophisticated methods used in recent high-profile cyber incidents have driven many to need to understand how such security issues work. Demystifying the complexity often associated with information assurance, Cyber Security Essentials provides a clear understanding of the concepts behind prevalent threats, tactics, and procedures.

To accomplish this, the team of security professionals from VeriSign’s iDefense^® Security Intelligence Services supplies an extensive review of the computer security landscape. Although the text is accessible to those new to cyber security, its comprehensive nature makes it ideal for experts who need to explain how computer security works to non-technical staff. Providing a fundamental understanding of the theory behind the key issues impacting cyber security, the book:

• Covers attacker methods and motivations, exploitation trends, malicious code techniques, and the latest threat vectors
• Addresses more than 75 key security concepts in a series of concise, well-illustrated summaries designed for most levels of technical understanding
• Supplies actionable advice for the mitigation of threats
• Breaks down the code used to write exploits into understandable diagrams

This book is not about the latest attack trends or botnets. It’s about the reasons why these problems continue to plague us. By better understanding the logic presented in these pages, readers will be prepared to transition to a career in the growing field of cyber security and enable proactive responses to the threats and attacks on the horizon.

Contents: 

1.    Cyber Security Fundamentals

2.    Attacker Techniques and Motivations

3.    Exploitation

4.    Malicious Code

5.    Defense and Analysis Techniques

6.    iDefense Special File Investigation Tools

About the Authors:

This book is the direct result of the outstanding efforts of a talented pool of security analysts, editors, business leaders and security professionals, all of whom work for iDefense^® Security Intelligence Services; a business unit of VeriSign, Inc.

iDefense is an open-source, cyber security intelligence operation that maintains expertise in vulnerability research and alerting, exploit development, malicious code analysis, underground monitoring and international actor attribution. iDefense provides intelligence products to Fortune 1,000 companies and "three-letter agencies" in various world governments. iDefense also maintains the Security Operations Center for the Financial Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC); one of 17 ISACs mandated by the US government to facilitate information sharing throughout the country’s business sectors.

iDefense has the industry-unique capability of determining not only the technical details of cyber security threats and events (the "what", the "when" and the "where"), but because of their international presence, iDefense personnel can ascertain the most likely actors and motivations behind these attacks (the "who" and the "why").