Targeted Cyber Attacks: Multi-staged Attacks Driven by Exploits and Malware 1st Edition

Awesome book. It has a lot of great information about targeted attacks.

Great book! Has many examples to reference so that you can better understand the material.

ot only does this book show you how hackers and others commit cyber-attacks, but how to secure your system to protect it from these cyber-attacks.Do you wonder why anyone would want to commit a cyber-attack? Quoted directly from the book, in chapter one: "The exploitation of networks and technologies for gathering information is now commonplace on the Internet, and targeted cyber attacksare a common weapon for subverting the integrity of Internet operations.These attacks steal intellectual property, conduct cyber espionage,damage critical infrastructure and create uncertainty amongusers. They can achieve both tactical and strategic goals across theInternet without requiring any physical encroachment. It is clear thattargeted attacks provide a tactical advantage that can play a significantrole in future cyber wars." (Sood and Enbody 2014)With so much at stake, you would think that more people would seek to learn more about these attacks in order to protect themselves. In the case of commerce, it would also protect their end users. Is your online shopping or even your email accounts safe? What about your online banking? There are so many questions and sometimes too few answers. Yet, there are people like Sood and Enbody among others, who have the answers. As long as we take the time to listen, read and learn. No books in the world will be of any value if we refuse to take the time to read, learn and follow the suggestions the authors give us.

Targeted cyber attacks are for the most part the same as an APT (advanced persistent threat). It was last year's report on APT1 from Mandiant that brought this important information security topic to the forefront.In Targeted Cyber Attacks: Multi-staged Attacks Driven by Exploits and Malware, authors Aditya Sood and Richard Enbody write that there are a few different definitions of what a targeted cyber attack is. They use the standard definition that it's a class of dedicated attacks that aim at a specific user, company or organization, with the intent to gain access to critical data in a stealthy manner. They also note that APT's are simply variants of targeted cyber attacks.At 158 pages, the book provides a good introduction to the topic with significant amounts of background information. It provides a mid- to high-level overview of the topic.For those looking for a good introduction to the topic, which can then lead them to a more comprehensive reference, Targeted Cyber Attacks: Multi-staged Attacks Driven by Exploits and Malware is a good place to start.Note that Amazon has this being mislabeled as being in published in April 2010, when it was published in April 2014.

Targeted attacks are a class of dedicated attacks that aim at a specific user, company or organization to gain access to the critical data in a stealthy manner. This book do a great work explaining the nuts and bolts of this stuff.The book is organized along nine chapters: '1. Introduction', '2. Intelligence Gathering', '3. Infecting the Target', '4. System Exploitation', '5. Data Exfiltration Mechanisms', '6. Maintaining Control and Lateral Movement', '7. Why targeted Cyber Attacks Are Easy to Conduct?', '8. Challenges and Countermeasures' and '9. Conclusions'.The chapter 1 lays the foundation of the different phases required for successful execution of targeted attacks. Those phases are covered in detail along chapters 2-6. I would highlight in chapter 1 how the authors makes the fine difference between targeted attacks and Advanced Persistent Threats (APT). Good to know.This book is not a technical book. You are not going to find Assembly dead listings, IDS’ signatures and so on. It is a book commenting in the current context for targeted attacks. It does a good work though. If you want to read more on the topics it adds good references at the end of chapters.Maybe the chapter 4 is the most technical one. It handles system exploitation. It covers the usual protection mechanisms found in systems (DEP, ASLR, etc) and how these are bypassed by advanced exploits.The chapter 7 does a good description of Crimeware-as-a-Service (CaaS). It describes the current and developed malware economy where attackers are able to buy infrastructure and exploits to craft effective and affordable attacks.Chapters 8 and 9 raise the awareness of the naive Internet user. It is all about risk management, best practice guidelines and the real nature of these attacks.In summary, this book is a good and simple reference on targeted attacks. It is an useful resource to understand the purpose of targeted attacks and the intentions behind of the attackers.

This is a brilliant book for learning about Advanced Persistent Threats.Its easy to read and very well laid out.It will give the reader a good start in understanding what APT are about.Like all computer books they can become a little out of date quickly but this book will give anyone a good grounding to start off with.

Easy to read and packed full of useful information. I'm always abut concerned when I see so many typos and grammatical errors as it makes me wonder how accurate the examples are. It's still an excellent read however - I just wish a little more time had been spent on the proof reading.

Great book, that explains how Cyber attacks and APT are carried out, It was an easy read and very enjoyable

Very good book the Syngress is a good brand of books i like how 100s of pages are not

Dieses Buch ist der Überblick, den man erst einmal haben sollte. Von da an "weiter". Wirklich gut - die Fonts sind allerdings zu klein.....