I very much liked the samples and references to existing tools, although they clearly indicate the possible criminal repercussions of using some of these tools/techniques. The samples provide invaluable insight and experience into learning the techniques, and how to thwart them, if it's possible at this time. The intrusion detection/defense material is split between information that would benefit everyone, including home pc users, and techniques more suited to professionals, such as advanced intrusion detection and network defense. This would be a very good second book on the subject, and barring any sudden changes in the security landscape, this book should hold it's value for some time to come.

This book is very interesting to read and amazing to see how easy it is to "hack" various kinds of applications with just a few tools. The book discusses the basics of reverse engineering on Windows, Linux, and Pocket PC. Additionally, the authors step through a couple of examples, to show just how easy it is to bypass entering a serial number in a software install. Other "hacks" shows include buffer overflow, TCP/IP, SQL injection attacks, and even social engineering.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in any kind of software or network security. It is very eye-opening to see just how easy it is to compromise a system. Once you know how your enemy attacks, you can proceed with ways to combat them.

Any infosec professional worth his or her salt already knows a lot of what you'll find in here. But none of us knows everything; the authors aim to fill in the blanks in any professional's knowledge. The great thing about this book is that you can instantly flip to the section on what you need to know more about and find clear, in-depth information. If that's not enough, each topic includes a list of additional references to help you learn more.

If I have any complaint about this book, it's the pages and pages of code. How many of us actually read all that code when we encounter it in a book? When code is needed to make a point, I'd like to see no more than ten - fifteen lines of it at a time with appropriate comments in the text. If we really need the rest, it would be far more helpful in appendices at the back of the book, or, better yet, on a CD-ROM included with the book. That said, this book is likely to become an indispensable reference for your library, and well worth the price.

Part 1 covers software cracking. It provides a thorough introduction to the field. I discovered a lot of useful tid-bits and techniques throughout the book. For example, I just didn't know you could customize your gdb sessions by using macros in a .gdbinit file.

Part 2 covers network stalking. At first glance I though I might skip this section, because I'm familiar with the concepts. I'm glad I didn't, because there's nothing stale here. I picked up a few useful tidbits of information in each chapter that I didn't know.

Part 3 covers platform attacks. Familiar ground for most of this books target audience, but there was much fresh information in here. It's as if the authors have read the same books as the rest of us and specifically chosen to research and expand upon areas that were left out of those books.

Part 4 covers advanced defense. This part of the book is very useful. Log file aggregation, IDS, honeypots, and forensics techniques are some of the more significant discussions. I found the case study on setting up SNORT with ACID particularly helpful.

I can't think of a better way to describe it than the authors did in the preface, "ratchet your level of knowledge upward by a few notches." Folks in the trenches will find this quite helpful and enjoyable to read.