Customer Rating:  
Summary: Computer Security Hands On Guide
Comment: 'Essential Computer Security: Everyone's Guide to Email, Internet, and Wireless Security' is exactly what it says it is, a guide for admins and IT people to learn to implement better security practices in their everyday lives on the job. With 250+ pages of material, this is a standard Syngress book that you will no doubt be familiar with if you have read their stuff before. Filled with niche particulars that expect the reader to have a background with the subject matter, Syngress releases truly are no fluff, just stuff as they set their sites on the nerdspeak content and not a pretty package. If you want to read up on computer security and learn how to keep your corporate infrastructure safer and more secure, take a look at this release.
**** RECOMMENDED
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great intro to infosec
Comment: Driving on the information highway, users face threats ranging from worms to scams. The Essential Computer Security: Everyone's Guide to Email, Internet, and Wireless Security can serve as the owner's manual for anyone serious about ensuring the security of their computer and the data contained therein. Many victims of identity theft could undoubtedly have protected themselves had they followed the basic rules outlined in the book.
Essential Computer Security does not attempt to be an encyclopedic work covering the esoteric realms of computer security. Rather, author Tony Bradley takes a "just the facts" approach and covers the essentials, focusing on the two applications average consumers use most: e-mail and the Internet.
In 12 lucid, easy-to-read chapters, Bradley covers all of the necessary topics end-users need to understand, from the basics of Microsoft Windows security to passwords, patching, malware, wireless, e-mail security, and more.
The text does have a technical angle for readers who want that level of detail.
Too few IT security books are written for the typical user. This work lives up to its title and fills an important need.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Useful Book on Computer Security
Comment: I found this book easy to read and have useful information about setting up Windows XP security.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Working together we can all make the Internet a safer place !
Comment: When Tony asked me to write the foreword for this book, I considered it an great honor. We both share the strong belief that knowledge is a more powerful tool than any firewall, antivirus program or intrusion detection system could ever hope to be. That said, not all of us have the luxury of security guru at our fingertips to show us the ropes. This means that you sometimes need to take it upon yourself to understand and learn what needs to be done to keep your computer and network safe and secure. That is what this book was engineered to do, without any confusing jargon or talking down to the reader. Get it and read it and help make the Internet a more secure and safer place for all of us to enjoy.
Douglas Schweitzer, Sc.D.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Computer Security for Everyone
Comment: One of the first things to know about this book is that it doesn't try to be a complete reference for computer security, and it keeps it focus very well. It doesn't try to be a computer security book for the top 5% of the technically inclined, either. Instead, it tries to be a computer security book for the masses and covers topics that they'll need to know to keep their computer safe. The book outline why this is important to the average user: your own data will be kept safe and your computer will be kept problem free, and your computer wont be a problem source for everyone else.
The book does a decent job of laying out what it will cover and mostly picks topics that matter most, require the least amount of extra effort to make it happen. The book isn't just for one situation, either, and it covers some home network setups which include wireless routers and such. Overall, it seems to have picked its territory well.
It covers this territory in an OK fashion, which is to say that it gives an adequate treatment to the important topics but leaves a few spots uncovered. I'm pleased that it covers some basic WinXP stuff, like how to secure your accounts and such.
The chapter on passwords was OK, and about what I expected. Obviously these are important, as bots that perform brute force attacks to get in are as popular as ever. The chapter on patching is OK, but seems incomplete. It should have done a better job of covering Windows Update a little more thoroughly (it felt like it stopped short of this important feature) and a bit more on how to use built-in vendor supplied "I have an update available" stuff that is increasingly popular.
Part II is what's probably unique about this book, and gives some of the best meat around for this level of a book. It covers home networking safety (ie keeping the neighbor kid from using your WIFI and keeping your computers safe and usable behind a DSL firewall), email security (both your account credentials and attachment security), and spyware, adware, and general web-browser security. I would have liked to have seen the book advocate (with great reasons) Firefox over IE and Windows Defender in addition to AdAware and Hijack This.
Part 3 is about maintenance and backups, and it's decent. It slips into Linux advocacy in Chapter 12, which we could have done without.
The appendices are good, well reasoned and well executed. The case study and the basics covered complement the book well.
Overall the book does a decent job, and targets the kind of person who would like to know enough to participate in some popular forums and contribute, so they have some technical skills that they're growing. It wont do so well with people who are not very technically inclined, and that's not unsurprising.
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