The best-selling first edition of Firewalls and Internet Security became the bible of Internet security by showing readers how to think about threats and solutions. The completely updated and expanded second edition defines the security problems students face in today's Internet, identifies the weaknesses of the most popular security technologies, and illustrates the ins and outs of deploying an effective firewall. Students learn how to plan and execute a security strategy that allows easy access to Internet services while defeating even the wiliest of hackers. Written by well-known senior researchers at AT&T Bell Labs, Lumeta, and Johns Hopkins University the students will benefit from the actual, real-world experiences of the authors maintaining, improving, and redesigning AT&T's Internet gateway.

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The book opens with a few pages on security truisms, my favorite part of the book and a dazzling display of intellect! All the material after the truisms and up to chapter 9 is a quick tour of topics like Security Policy, Host-Based Security and Perimeter Security, Authentication, and all the Protocols in a couple paragraphs each.

Chapters 9 - 12 are where the book covers perimeters. Chapter 9 is dated material, Static Packet Filters, Network Topology, Application Gateways, and SOCKS. The book begins to improve in Chapter 10, remember, these authors really know their stuff and if you read closely there is wisdom here. The "Use the phone?" comment in the H.323 and SIP example firewall rule was a classic. Sadly, this whole critically important section got one thin paragraph.

In Chapter 13, there is a fascinating discussion about using routing tricks to protect a host, but it isn't clear to me you can implement this with the four sentences of information the authors provide. As you march on to Chapter 16, they have a few paragraphs on host security, name some types of IDSes and so forth.

Chapter 16 is from the original edition, An Evening with Berferd is a lovely read especially if you have a Unix background. Chapter 17, The Taking of Clark, another war story, was also fun.

The ending of the book is sad, the technical material concludes with three and a half pages titled: Where do we go from here? They briefly mention IPv6, but come to no conclusion as to its future. DNSsec gets two paragraphs, we do not even learn what it is, (a new resource record where the information that is stored can be signed).

In the final paragraph the authors conclude we are going backward not forward, that we cannot achieve the security level Multics had in the 1970s with modern operating systems. I sincerely hope that is not true; take a look at OpenBSD, one exploitable remote vulnerability in seven years. Think about the progress RedHat and Microsoft are making. Take a look at the work The Center for Internet Security is doing, take the Unix or Windows tracks at SANS, but never, ever give up.

11 of 12 found the following review helpful:

Yet another worthwhile book for us all in the IT industry!Oct 10, 2003
By Christos Partsenidis
Addison-Wesley in cooperation with William Cheskwick, Steven Bellovin and Aviel Rubin have produced yet another well-researched publication.

This book is all about Internet security, firewalls, VPNs and much more, all of which are hot topics and renowned buzzwords within today's IT industry.

In the first chapter, the authors express their view on network security and demonstrate the different methods an Administrator can use in order to secure their network(s). This is carried out by categorizing security into Host-Based and Perimeter security.

The second and third chapters are approximately 50 pages covering basic protocols, including IPv6, DNS, FTP, SNMP, NTP, RPC-based protocols and a several more like the famous NAT. The chapters are concluded with a summary on wireless security.

The next five chapters (chapter 4 to 8 inclusive), analyze various attacks used against networks and server operating systems in an attempt to exploit them. There is a wealth of information concerning hacking, allowing the reader to enter the mind of a hacker in terms of what they think and how they proceed to meet their goal.

One complete chapter is dedicated to various password tactics in which one can ensure that a hacker's life is made more difficult should they attempt to break into a few accounts using well-known methods related to password guessing. CHAP, PAP, Radius and PKI are also analyzed.

Chapter 9 to 12 are dedicated to Firewalls and VPNs which, in passing, happen to be my favourite chapters. They offer an in-depth analysis of the Firewall concept, packet filtering, application-level filtering and circuit level gateways. It proceeds with information about the filtering services, giving detailed examples on how one could use IPChains to create a simple or complex set of rules to efficiently block/permit packets entering in and out the network. This is perhaps the only downside to this informative book, where IPTables would have been beneficial to include, since people rarely use IPchains these days.

Lastly, chapter 12 talks about VPNs, their encryption methods, and considers both their weaknesses and advantages.

In addition to this, the book continues with several more chapters covering general questions that may arise for the reader, such as intranet routing, administration security and intrusion detection systems.

Towards the end, the authors talk about their personal experiences with people trying to hack into their companies and, as a result, explain the step- by- step process of how they managed to fight them and secure their networks. These pages are simply a goldmine for anyone interested in this area.

In summary, I'd say that the book is well worth its money and would suggest it to anyone interested in network security and firewalls. I am certain they won't be disappointed simply because the book has a lot to offer...

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

Exceptional authors, but not an exceptional bookMar 17, 2003
By Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity"
I wish I could give "Firewalls and Internet Security, 2nd Edition" (FAIS:2E) more stars. I eagerly awaited the next edition of this security classic with the rest of the community. However, like many sequels, it fails to live up to expectations. Nine years ago the first edition was revolutionary. In 2003, despite the addition of skilled practitioner Avi Rubin, the authors make few original contributions to the security scene.

The book's strengths include sharing certain keen insights and summarizing key technical data. They repeat the conclusion that frequent password changes tend to decrease security, rather than improve it. They succinctly describe BGP and IPv6. They accurately explain that TCP sequence numbers count bytes of data, not packets -- unlike many other authors. Their case studies, while dating from the early 1990s, are the most enjoyable parts of FAIS:2E. Like Avi Rubin's "White Hat Security Arsenal" (a better book), they cite scholarly work. Attention is paid to the firewall software of my favorite OS, FreeBSD, in ch 11.

On the negative side, the book is a mix of simplistic and advanced material. In some areas the authors start with basics, while in others they use terms like "black-hole" (p. 249) with little regard for newbies. The book seems disorganized; readers will find it hard to separate key points from normal text. The "forensics" advice, admittedly labeled as "crude" in ch 17, gives incomplete recommendations which do not reflect best forensic live response practices. (The "best thing to do" is "run ps and netstat" and then "turn the computer off"?) The authors are also very negative about the Windows OS, saying on p. 255 "We do not know how to secure them, or even if it is possible." While Windows is admittedly difficult to configure and operate securely, this statement is a cop-out. Better to direct readers to "Securing Windows NT/2000 Servers for the Internet" by Stefan Norberg. Examples with IPChains in ch 11 should have been updated with IPTables, or at least IPTables should not have been dismissed as being the same except for syntax.

FAIS:2E does contain useful information. I just think books like O'Reilly's "Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Edition" and New Riders' "Linux Firewalls, 2nd Edition" are more helpful. Addison-Wesley's "White Hat Security Arsenal" is more enlightening, as well. Review FAIS:2E in a store before you commit to buying it -- you might find it helpful.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Fun and useful readJun 12, 2003
By Dr Anton Chuvakin "Dr. Anton Chuvakin"
This great security book is written by the three famous members of a
security community "old school". These people supposedly lived when
dinosaurs roamed the Earth, when firewalls were a novelty and
intrusion detection unheard of and TCP port 80 was referred to as
"this new web thing. :-)

The book starts with an unusually exciting section on "security
truisms", timeless principles that allowed the first edition (1994)
to survive until the present time as a useful security book. The

principles will come handy for both hardened security pros (as review)
and complete beginners (as a required mindset). "Keep it simple",
"there is no absolute security", "defense in depth", "fix the
weakest link" and many others still form the philosophical skeleton
of modern security. In the same initial section, the ever-present
mystery of a security policy is covered in a clear and comprehensive
fashion.

Many other great ideas (some of which are starting to be forgotten
such as "firewall is a gate, not a wall") are found in a book. For
example, the benefits and pitfalls of crypto are also analyzed.

An interesting argument is provided on how graphical interfaces (GUIs)
actually measurably decrease firewall security. While some might think
that "easy to use equals more likely to be used right", authors hold
a different opinion.

While much of the content is timeless, the book is fully up to date
with material on DoS (and DDoS) attacks, VPNs and web security. Even
the debates on hiring hackers and eternal patching cycles find their
place in the book insets.

Firewalls are present in the book title, thus they get all the
deserved coverage with many examples of practical firewall
configuration (Linux, BSD). Linux ipchains coverage is a bit dated,
but can be used for the most part for the modern iptables
configuration as well. IDS are only mentioned, since the authors
apparently don't like them that much.

The book is understandably focused on defense. However, some novel
(are they really - surely authors have a reference somewhere to a 1985
paper where they were first covered? :-) ) attacks on routing are
discussed. Honeypots (in the form of a classic "An Evening with
Berferd" paper updated with more analysis) are also discussed. A
couple more fun incident cases (such as "The Taking of Clark" where
an unknown attacker had a point at getting through to one of the
authors) are also presented.

It does inherit the properties of the first edition (now freely
available) and have everything to look forward to the long and
successful future. The book is strongly recommended for any security
professional.

The book also boasts many amazing references to security
resources. What made some of them surprising is their age. How about a
paper on limitation of password authentication - from 1984?

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH is a Senior Security Analyst with a major
information security company. His areas of infosec expertise include
intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his
spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

5 of 6 found the following review helpful:

It's hard to be timeless in this fieldNov 14, 2002
By William R. Cheswick "glorified system administrator"
The words we wrote some nine years ago have a number of amusing anachronisms. This book is way overdue for an update, though the basic lessons are still valid.

Steve and I have been swamped with work, and the second edition needed nearly a full rewrite, so we brought Avi Rubin in to help us out. The technical reviews are coming in now, and the second edition should hit the streets mid-spring 2003.

That said, there are pieces unique to the first edition---the field is much bigger now---and I wonder if some of the bits in the first edition that didn't make it, like "A Look at the Logs", will remain interesting in the future.

The response to this by you, the reading public, has been more gratifying than a sea of "A"s in English papers! Thank you all!

ches

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