Cybersecurity Arm Wrestling

Practitioners in Cybersecurity community understand that they are an unending war with opponents who have varying interests, but are mostly motivated by financial gains. New vulnerabilities are continuously discovered, new technologies are continuously being developed, and attackers are innovative in exploiting flaws to gain access to information assets for financial gains. It is profitable for attackers to succeed only few times. Security Operations Center (SOC) plays a key role in this perpetual arm wrestling to ensure you win most of the times. And if you fail once in a while, you can get back very quickly without much damage. People, who are part of SOC planning, architecture, design, implementation, operations, and incidents response will find this book useful.Many public and private sector organizations have built Security Operations Centers in-house whereas others have outsourced SOC operations to managed security services providers. Some also choose a hybrid approach by keeping parts of SOC operations in-house and outsourcing the rest of it. However, many of these efforts don't bring the intended results or realize desired business outcomes.This book is an effort to learn from experiences of many SOC practitioners and researchers to find practices that have been proven to be useful while avoiding common pitfalls in building SOC. I have also explored different ideas to find a "balanced" approach towards building a SOC and making informed choices between functions that can/should be kept in-house and the ones that can be outsourced. Even if you are an experienced SOC professional, you will still find few interesting ideas as I have done significant research and interviewed many SOC professionals to include tips to help avoid pitfalls.

The inside story of how America's enemies launched a cyber war against us-and how we've learned to fight back With each passing year, the internet-linked attacks on America's interests have grown in both frequency and severity. Overmatched by our military, countries like North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia have found us vulnerable in cyberspace. The "Code War" is upon us. In this dramatic book, former Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin takes readers to the front lines of a global but little-understood fight as the Justice Department and the FBI chases down hackers, online terrorist recruiters, and spies. Today, as our entire economy goes digital, from banking to manufacturing to transportation, the potential targets for our enemies multiply. This firsthand account is both a remarkable untold story and a warning of dangers yet to come.

The information security threat landscape changes frequently as a result of changes in technologies, economic issues, globalization, social activism and hectavism, new political realities, and innovations by plain old criminals who want to steal data for financial benefits. Along with, the role and responsibilities of security professionals, especially the ones in the leadership roles, also change. Instead of playing a catch up game all the time, this book emphasizes focusing on basic principles and techniques. The information security leaders should implement these principles to update their personal knowledge, to safeguard their organization's information assets and optimize information security cost.After having meetings with many information security leaders in diverse industry sectors, I have realized that there is a set of “fundamental” models that help these leaders run successful and effective information security programs. This book is a summary of these fundamentals.Who are the target audience?If you are an information security professional, whether in a leadership role or aspiring to be a future leader, this book is for you.What is this book about?The objective of this book is to make you successful as information security professional by learning from experience of great leaders in this field. It provides core fundamental models in a concise manner that are easy to read and use in managing information security. Most of the chapters accompany visual mind maps, action items, and other visual tools for easy understanding.How is this book organized?The book covers a set of carefully selected topics. This is to ensure that focus remains on principles that are the most important to the success of a security professional. The topics are arranged in six parts as listed below.1. Know The Business – List of topics important for understanding and knowing the business.2. Information Security Strategy – Elements of information security strategy, how to create strategy and put it into practice.3. Security Operations – Major areas related to running an effective security operations program.4. Risk Management – How to assess and manage risk.5. Personal Branding – Creating personal brand and establishing credibility tobe effective as information security leader.6. Appendices – Miscellaneous data points and sources of information.How I Use This Book?I suggest that you read one chapter daily, take actions, set goals, and write those actions and goals on the “Goals and Activity Log” page at the end of each chapter. Next day, read another chapter and write the actions and goals with target dates. As you go along, start reading random chapters and keep on reviewing and updating your actions and goals to measure your progress and success.A Systematic Way of Achieving ExcellenceThe book provides a systematic and measureable way towards excellence in your job. I have gone to great length to limit each topic to two pages or less. Please use the “Goals and Activity Log” page to record your progress and make the best use of your time. While you go along, record your experiences and share them on the book web site.Book Web SiteMany detailed mind maps, new articles, and discussions are made available at the book web site http://InfoSecLeadersHandbook.wordpress.com. New content will be added on an ongoing basis and you can actually publish your own mind maps on this web site. I would like this web site to be driven by the community where you can share your experiences, tools, mind maps, and any other information to help the information security leaders. Please register on the web site to receive updates.

Master Wireshark to solve real-world security problems If you don’t already use Wireshark for a wide range of information security tasks, you will after this book. Mature and powerful, Wireshark is commonly used to find root cause of challenging network issues. This book extends that power to information security professionals, complete with a downloadable, virtual lab environment. Wireshark for Security Professionals covers both offensive and defensive concepts that can be applied to essentially any InfoSec role. Whether into network security, malware analysis, intrusion detection, or penetration testing, this book demonstrates Wireshark through relevant and useful examples. Master Wireshark through both lab scenarios and exercises. Early in the book, a virtual lab environment is provided for the purpose of getting hands-on experience with Wireshark. Wireshark is combined with two popular platforms: Kali, the security-focused Linux distribution, and the Metasploit Framework, the open-source framework for security testing. Lab-based virtual systems generate network traffic for analysis, investigation and demonstration. In addition to following along with the labs you will be challenged with end-of-chapter exercises to expand on covered material. Lastly, this book explores Wireshark with Lua, the light-weight programming language. Lua allows you to extend and customize Wireshark’s features for your needs as a security professional. Lua source code is available both in the book and online. Lua code and lab source code are available online through GitHub, which the book also introduces. The book’s final two chapters greatly draw on Lua and TShark, the command-line interface of Wireshark. By the end of the book you will gain the following: Master the basics of Wireshark Explore the virtual w4sp-lab environment that mimics a real-world network Gain experience using the Debian-based Kali OS among other systems Understand the technical details behind network attacks Execute exploitation and grasp offensive and defensive activities, exploring them through Wireshark Employ Lua to extend Wireshark features and create useful scripts To sum up, the book content, labs and online material, coupled with many referenced sources of PCAP traces, together present a dynamic and robust manual for information security professionals seeking to leverage Wireshark.

The stunning first installment of a new American Odyssey, set over the course of the Civil War.

Over the Atlantic, an airliner's controls suddenly stop reacting. In Japan, an oil tanker runs aground when its navigational system fails. And in America, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl. At first, these computer failures seem unrelated. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who saw the mistakes made before 9/11, fears that there may be a more serious attack coming. And he soon realizes that there isn't much time if he hopes to stop an international disaster.

Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt. This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.

Exploring Careers in Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics serves as a career guide, providing information about education, certifications, and tools to help those making career decisions within the cybersecurity field.