Phishing: Cutting the Identity Theft Line Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Phishing is the scourge of the internet right now. Rachael Lininger and Russell Dean Vines have done a pretty good job in helping individuals and companies understand the problem with their book Phishing - Cutting The Identity Theft Line (Wiley).
Chapter List: Phishing for Phun and Profit; Bait and Switch: Phishing Emails; False Fronts: Phishing Websites; Are You Owned: Understanding Phishing Spyware; Gloom and Doom: You Can't Stop Phishing Completely; Helping Your Organization Avoid Phishing; Fighting Back: How Your Organization Can Respond To Attack; Avoiding the Hook: Consumer Education; Help! I'm a Phish! Consumer Response; Glossary of Phishing-Related Terms; Useful Websites; Identity Theft Affidavit; Index
It used to be I'd see one or two "requests" a week to update my personal information for places like eBay or Citibank. Now it's closer to two or three a day. I'm well aware that these phishing attempts are scams meant to commit identity theft, but apparently we internet-savvy people are in the minority. Lininger and Vines have written a very readable and understandable guide to phishing that can easily be given to nearly anyone to help them protect themselves. The uninitiated will quickly grasp the idea that they shouldn't be responding to emails like these, and as a result they'll be much safer. People who are internet-savvy will learn the tricks that are used by the phishers to make links appear to be something other than what they truly are. Even organizations can benefit from the chapters on what they should do if they find that their servers have been co-opted to run a phishing scam.
Very practical material with the benefit of being a book that's fun to read. This is information that needs to be in the hands of all internet users these days...

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"Phishing" is the hot new identity theft scam. An unsuspecting victim receives an e-mail that seems to come from a bank or other financial institution, and it contains a link to a Web site where s/he is asked to provide account details. The site looks legitimate, and 3 to 5 percent of people who receive the e-mail go on to surrender their information-to crooks. One e-mail monitoring organization reported 2.3 billion phishing messages in February 2004 alone.
If that weren't enough, the crooks have expanded their operations to include malicious code that steals identity information without the computer user's knowledge. Thousands of computers are compromised each day, and phishing code is increasingly becoming part of the standard exploits.Written by a phishing security expert at a top financial institution, this unique book helps IT professionals respond to phishing incidents. After describing in detail what goes into phishing expeditions, the author provides step-by-step directions for discouraging attacks and responding to those that have already happened.
In Phishing, Rachael Lininger:

Offers case studies that reveal the technical ins and outs of impressive phishing attacks.
Presents a step-by-step model for phishing prevention.
Explains how intrusion detection systems can help prevent phishers from attaining their goal-identity theft.
Delivers in-depth incident response techniques that can quickly shutdown phishing sites.

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Hacking: The Next Generation (Animal Guide) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I'm always skeptical about books that propose to cover such a vast spectrum of subjects, the book in question however does a wonderful job at explaining in plain english what is happening behind an attack, it unveils the possible motives and end result, and I personally found it a superb manuscript on what is happening today in the fields of hacking and social engineering.
On a more technical side it covers XSS attacks and blended exploits, again in plain english. Though the authors also throw some code in there to keep the techiest of us entertained, personally I found the inclusion of code somewhat unnecessary. 'Plain english' would suffice especially because I found that this would otherwise be the perfect book to hand to someone less techy who wants to know what is happening out there in the wild and to some extent what they need to look out for if they intend to be security conscious. Could they ignore the code? sure! will they? depends on the individual and his/her aversion to programming. It still keeps its five stars though, I cant fault a book for having too much information. The book also covers phishing attacks, that chapter was a very worth wile read. I hold no interest or curiosity in phishing attacks and after reading it I was surprised on what I had learned.
The chapters on social engineering and information gathering were very interesting as well. The authors made a clear effort to mention current online tools that attackers can use to acquire information on a target (may that be a person or a corporate entity) and go into deeper detail on how such an attack can develop into face to face contact with a target. The way the book is written makes it feel like a story, like one attack unfolds into another and that is really why this book is such good fun to read.
If there's something I can fault in this book its really its life span. You have to get it now for it to matter. In 2 years time all this will be old, stale news and at the speed things change in the IT/IS world its really quite inevitable. Social engineering will always be social engineering but the tools used to gather information will surely change.

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With the advent of rich Internet applications, the explosion of social media, and the increased use of powerful cloud computing infrastructures, a new generation of attackers has added cunning new techniques to its arsenal. For anyone involved in defending an application or a network of systems, Hacking: The Next Generation is one of the few books to identify a variety of emerging attack vectors. You'll not only find valuable information on new hacks that attempt to exploit technical flaws, you'll also learn how attackers take advantage of individuals via social networking sites, and abuse vulnerabilities in wireless technologies and cloud infrastructures. Written by seasoned Internet security professionals, this book helps you understand the motives and psychology of hackers behind these attacks, enabling you to better prepare and defend against them.



Learn how "inside out" techniques can poke holes into protected networks
Understand the new wave of "blended threats" that take advantage of multiple application vulnerabilities to steal corporate data
Recognize weaknesses in today's powerful cloud infrastructures and how they can be exploited
Prevent attacks against the mobile workforce and their devices containing valuable data
Be aware of attacks via social networking sites to obtain confidential information from executives and their assistants
Get case studies that show how several layers of vulnerabilities can be used to compromise multinational corporations

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