Practical Unix and Internet Security

Practical Unix & Internet Security -Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford

Order (or just read more about) Practical Unix Security from Amazon.com

Thanks to Bruce Garlock for pointing out this new edition to me.

This was originally published in 1991, but this 1996 2nd edition is much larger and of course completely updated.

It is, of course, always true that no security book can be current for more than a few minutes- things just change too quickly. So in some sense this is already way out of date. However, as the title promises, this is "practical" Unix security- it's not a mathematical treatment, it isn't a light introductory overview (although the introductory material is very good)- it is a practical guide to security issues.

O'Reilly almost always does an excellent job, and this is no exception. Over 900 pages cover everything: physical, personnel, firewalls, proxies- everything.

Dan Farmer (one of the authors of COPS and SATAN) says "If you could only purchase one book on Internet security, this is the one you'd want". I agree.

However, you do have to be aware (as the authors strongly suggest) that your OS is not specifically covered by the book. You need to be aware of the specific security issues that apply to your environment.