Practical UNIX and Internet Security

By Alan Schwartz.

The third edition of Practical UNIX & Internet Security contains--to an even greater extent than its favourably received predecessors--an enormous amount of accumulated wisdom about how to protect Internet-connected UNIX machines from intrusion and other forms of attack. The world's most business-critical transactions run on UNIX machines, which means the machines running those transactions attract evildoers. Furthermore, a lot of those machines have Internet connections, which means it's always possible that some nefarious remote user will find a way in. This book is fat with practical advice on specific defensive measures (to defeat known attacks) and generally wise policies (to head off as-yet-undiscovered ones).

The authors' approach to UNIX security is holistic and clever; they devote as much space to security philosophy as to advice about closing TCP ports and disabling unnecessary services. They also recognise that lots of UNIX machines are development platforms, and make many recommendations to consider as you design software. It's rare that ... More »