Introduction To Network Security - Part 2 - 4. Where Can I Find More Information?

Page 4 of 5: 4. Where Can I Find More Information?

Where Can I Find More Information?

Without obviously plugging our site too much, the best place for answers to questions relating to this article is in our forums. The Security/Firewalls Forum is the best place to do this -- so you can ask anything from the most basic to the most advanced questions concerning network security there. A lot of common questions have already been answered in the forums, so you will quite likely find answers to questions like 'Which firewall should I use ?'.

As far as off-site resources are concerned, network security is a very vast field and there is seemingly limitless information on the subject. You will never find information at so-called hacker sites full of programs. The best way to learn about network security is to deal with the first word first -- you should be able to talk networking in and out, from packet header to checksum, layer 1 to layer 7.

Once you've got that down, you should start on the security aspect. Start by reading a lot of the papers on the net. Take in the basics first, and make sure you keep reading. Wherever possible, try to experiment with what you have read. If you don't have a home lab, you can build one 'virtually'. See the posts in the Cool Software forum about VMware.

Also, start reading the security mailing lists such as bugtraq and security-basics. Initially you may find yourself unable to understand a lot of what happens there, but the newest vulnerabilities are always announced on these lists. If you follow a vulnerability from the time its discovered to when someone posts an exploit for it, you'll get a very good idea of how the security community works.. and you'll also learn a hell of a lot in the process.

If you're serious about security, it is imperative that you learn a programming language, or at least are able to understand code if not write your own. The best choices are C and assembly language. However knowing PERL and Python are also valuable skills as you can write programs in these languages very quickly.

For now, here are a few links that you can follow for more information:

www.securityfocus.com - A very good site with all the latest news, a very good library and tools collection as well as sections dedicated to basics, intrusion detection, penetration testing etc. Also home of the Bugtraq mailing list.

www.sans.org - A site with excellent resources in its reading room, people who submit papers there are trying for a certification and as a result its mostly original material and of a very high calibre.

www.security-portal.com - A good general security site.

www.cert.org - The CERT coordination center provides updates on the latest threats and how to deal with them. Also has very good best practice tips for admins.

www.securityfocus.com/archive/1 - This is the link to Bugtraq, the best full disclosure security mailing list on the net. Here all the latest vulnerabilities get discussed way before you see them being exploited or in the press.

www.insecure.org - The mailing lists section has copies of bugtraq, full disclosure, security-basics, security-news etc etc. Also the home of nMap, the wonderful port scanner.

seclists.org - This is a direct link to the security lists section of insecure.org.

www.grc.com - For windows home users and newbies just interested in a non technical site. The site is home to Shields Up, which can test your home connection for file sharing vulnerabilities, do a port scan etc, all online. It can be a slightly melodramatic site at times though.

www.eeye.com - Home of the Retina Security Scanner. Considered the industry leader. The E-Eye team also works on a lot of the latest vulnerabilities for the windows platform.

www.nessus.org - Open source vulnerability scanner, and IMNSHO the best one going. If you're a tiger team penetration tester and you don't point nessus at a target, you're either really bad at your job or have a very large ego. If there's a vulnerability in a system, nessus will find it.

www.zonelabs.com - ZoneAlarm personal firewall for windows, considered the best, and also the market leader.

www.sygate.com - Sygate Personal Firewall, provides more configuration options than ZoneAlarm, but is consequently harder to use.

www.secinf.net - Huge selection of articles that are basically windows security related.

www.searchsecurity.com - A techtarget site which you should sign up for, very good info. Chris writes for searchnetworking.com its sister site.. I don't think the references could be much better.

www.antioffline.com - A very good library section on buffer overflows etc.

www.packetstormsecurity.nl - The largest selection of tools and exploits possible.