Intrusion Signatures and Analysis - Softcover

Fearnow, Matt; Federick, Karen; Cooper, Mark

3.43

23 ratings by Goodreads

9780735710634: Intrusion Signatures and Analysis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0735710635 ISBN 13: 9780735710634

Publisher: Sams, 2001

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Intrusion Signatures and Analysis opens with an introduction into the format of some of the more common sensors and then begins a tutorial into the unique format of the signatures and analyses used in the book. After a challenging four-chapter review, the reader finds page after page of signatures, in order by categories. Then the content digs right into reaction and responses covering how sometimes what you see isn�t always what is happening. The book also covers how analysts can spend time chasing after false positives. Also included is a section on how attacks have shut down the networks and web sites of Yahoo, and E-bay and what those attacks looked like. Readers will also find review questions with answers throughout the book, to be sure they comprehend the traces and material that has been covered.

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Review:

Stephen Northcutt and his coauthors note in the superb Intrusion Signatures and Analysis that there's really no such thing as an attack that's never been seen before. The book documents scores of attacks on systems of all kinds, showing exactly what security administrators should look for in their logs and commenting on attackers' every significant command. This is largely a taxonomy of hacker strategies and the tools used to implement them. As such, it's an essential tool for people who want to take a scientific, targeted approach to defending information systems. It's also a great resource for security experts who want to earn their Certified Intrusion Analyst ratings from the Global Incident Analysis Center (GIAC)--it's organized, in part, around that objective.

The book typically introduces an attack strategy with a real-life trace--usually attributed to a real administrator--from TCPdump, Snort, or some sort of firewall (the trace's source is always indicated). The trace indicates what is happening (i.e., what weakness the attacker is trying to exploit) and the severity of the attack (using a standard metric that takes into account the value of the target, the attack's potential to do damage, and the defenses arrayed against the attack). The attack documentation concludes with recommendations on how defenses could have been made stronger. These pages are great opportunities to learn how to read traces and take steps to strengthen your systems' defenses.

The book admirably argues that security administrators should take some responsibility for the greater good of the Internet by, for example, using egress filtering to prevent people inside their networks from spoofing their source address (thus defending other networks from their own users' malice). The authors (and the community of white-hat security specialists that they represent) have done and continue to do a valuable service to all Internet users. Supplement this book with Northcutt's excellent Network Intrusion Detection, which takes a more general approach to log analysis and is less focused on specific attack signatures. --David Wall

Topics covered:

External attacks on networks and hosts, as they appear to administrators and detection systems monitoring log files
How to read log files generally
How to report attacks and interact with the global community of good-guy security specialists
The most commonplace critical security weaknesses
Traces that document reconnaissance probes
Denial-of-service attacks
Trojans
Overflow attacks
Other black-hat strategies

About the Author:

Stephen Northcutt is the author of several books including: Incident Handling Step-by-Step, Intrusion Detection: Shadow Style (both by the SANS Institute) and Network Intrusion Detection: An Analyst's Handbook (New Riders) as well as a contributing editor for Securing NT Step-by-Step (The SANS Institute.) He was the original developer of the Shadow intrusion detection system and served as the leader of the Department of Defenses Shadow Intrusion Detection Team for two years. Mr. Northcutt was the Chief for Information Warfare at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and currently serves as the Director for GIAC Training and Certification for the SANS Institute. Mark Cooper graduated from UMIST in 1991 with a BS in Microelectronic Systems Engineering. Currently working as a security consultant, he reached his current position after spending many years as a software engineer and then as a UNIX Systems Administrator. He is now a SANS GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst. Matt Fearnow is a Network/ Security Administrator for Macmillan USA. Before working at Macmillan, he served in the US Navy as a Sonar Technician aboard submarines. In his current duties he constantly utilizes his SANS GIAC certification and is a frequent contributor to the SANS GIAC website. Matt was the first to establish categories for the traces from completed GIAC practicals. Karen Frederick is an Infosec Engineer for Sun Tzu Security in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and she is currently completing her master's degree thesis in intrusion detection from the University of Idaho's Engineering Outreach program. Karen holds several certifications, including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet, Check Point Certified Security Administrator and GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst.

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