Know Your Enemy: Learning about Security Threats

"The Honeynet guys have always been fighting the good fight: messing with the hackers' heads, learning what they're doing, collecting their tools and tricks, and sharing the knowledge with the rest of the good guys. It's one thing to sit around and try to guess what the hackers are up to, but the Honeynet Project just rolled up their sleeves and went on the offensive in their own unique way. Never before has being a victim been so cool! This book is a great resource for the serious information security professional and the beginning practitioner alike."
--Marcus J. Ranum, Senior Scientist, TrueSecure Corp.

"The Honeynet Project is one of the best sources, if not the best source, for information about current techniques and trends in the blackhat community. They are also how-to experts in setting up and gathering information--safely--about these attackers. The Honeynet Project's ability and willingness to share cutting-edge information is an immeasurable benefit to the security community."
--Jennifer Kolde, security consultant, author, and instructor

"Know Your Enemy contains an incredible wealth of information, including legal and sociological topics, that set it apart from other security books. The scope of this book is broad, and while no one book can teach people everything they need to know on such a topic, this one covers the subject better than any other source I know. Know Your Enemy will help security professionals with specific technical information, and it will help more general readers better understand a topic they need to learn about."
--William Robinson, former security training program manager at Sun Microsystems, curriculum coordinator for Fire Protection Publications.

"This book will be an extremely useful tool in helping a network security administrator or professional assemble the technical tools needed to build, maintain, analyze, and learn from a honeynet within their organization. Each technical chapter goes into great detail on commands, log formats, configuration files, network design, etc. As a professional working with many of these technologies on a daily basis, it is exciting to see all of this information in one place. The knowledge and experience of the authors in working with and developing honeynets has grown noticeably since the first book was published. This is a very positive revision."
--Sean Brown, IT Director, Applied Geographics, Inc.

"With the drastic increase in the number of attacks, it is important to have more people within the security industry studying attacks and attackers' motives and sharing their results with the community. This book begins by teaching users whether they should install a honeypot, and then gives details and information about honeypots and how they can deploy them."
--Kirby Kuehl, Cisco Systems

"Know Your Enemy reveals truths about the blackhat community and shows readers how to fight off attacks. The authors contribute their own experiences and offer the curious reader a rainbow of ideas."
--Laurent Oudot, security engineer, CEA

"The Honeynet Project has been blazing a trail and providing a hard dose of reality that computer security needs. Get behind the fantasy and learn what the hackers are really doing. This is great cutting-edge stuff!"
--Marcus J. Ranum, senior scientist, TruSecure Corp.

For centuries, military organizations have relied on scouts to gather intelligence about the enemy. In the field of information security, few scouts have ever existed. Very few organizations today know who their enemies are, how they might attack, when they might attack, and, perhaps most important, why they attack.

If the blackhat community is the enemy, then the Honeynet Project is a most valuable ally. In this completely revised and greatly expanded follow-up to their groundbreaking book, Know Your Enemy,

The Honeynet Project is a nonprofit security research organization made up of volunteers. These volunteers are dedicated to learning the tools, tactics, and motives of the blackhat community and sharing lessons learned. The Honeynet Project has 30 members, and works with various other organizations through The Honeynet Research Alliance.