 See larger picture | How to Break Software Security
by
James A. Whittaker and Herbert H. Thompson
- Addison WesleyList Price: $44.60
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Product Description How to Break Software Security describes the general problem of software security in a practical perspective from a software tester's point of view. It defines prescriptive techniques (attacks that testers can use on their own software) that are designed to ferret out security vulnerabilities in software applications. The book's style is easy to read and provides readers with the techniques and advice to hunt down security bugs and see that they're destroyed before the software is released. Accompanying the book is a CD-ROM containing Holodeck, which tests for security vulnerabilities. There are also a number of bug-finding tools, freeware, and an easy-to-use port scanner included on the CD-ROM.
Featured Customer Reviews Handy book,
October 24, 2008 How to Break Software Security is a good book. Handy. It is a little more than entry level on the topic and not much more than that, but at the same time if enough developers read it things should improve. Good ideas, but fails to follow through,
March 06, 2006
In my opinion, the book is too dependent on the Holodeck 1.3 program provided on the CD. Rather than explaining security testing in a tool agnostic way, the book often simply explains how to use Holodeck to perform an attack. I use Linux and Holodeck is Windows only, so it was useless to me. Reviewer Yvonne Eu said the tool did not work in her test environment. Holodeck is currently maintained by Security Innovation who charge $1495 for a single user license, but they also offer a 30 day evaluation license. If the version on the CD does not work for you, these are your two options. The book is a lot less useful if Holodeck does not work for you, so bear this in mind.
The focus on Holodeck also limits the scope of the book. The use of other types of tools such as web proxies, port scanners and tools to exercise user interfaces is not adequately covered.
Finally, I was disappointed by chapter 6, which looks at security testing three applications: Windows Media Player 9.0, Mozilla 1.2.1 (for Windows), and OpenOffice 1.0.2 (for Linux). This is an ideal opportunity to dive down and show how security testing tools should be applied, common pitfalls, and hands-on techniques for finding security issues. Instead, the chapter only explains how attacks should be planned and goes no deeper.
If you are new to security testing and want an overview of some common types of tests that should be run, this book will be useful. If you are interested in using Holodeck for your testing, this book will also be useful. If you do not fall into these categories, there are other books which are a better fit. If you want more detail, I recommend trying one of the Hacking Exposed series.Holodeck rules! - Does it?,
October 28, 2005 The whole book feels like a promotion for Holodeck tool. Some of the chapters are very straightforward: boot your AUT (Application Under Test) from Holodeck and see what happens. However, the version of the tool supplied with the book isn't supported by anybody and, sure enough, it doesn't work with my AUT. The supported one is above $1K for single user licence...
Though as much as I appreciate the general ideas about blackbox security testing Whittaker is voicing in this book, I feel it's just not enough there for its price. :( Security testing for QA folks, also good for infosec folks,
September 23, 2004
If you're a software tester or in the software quality assurance field, especially if you're interested in security, you need to read this book as it will likely be an eye-opener. It's not full of shocking anecdotes to scare developers into writing better software, it's a handbook of what to look for when testing software after you think you've done all your testing, and at the same time gives developers and project managers good information on how to design, code, and state requirements better.
If you're a security person, especially the burgeoning field of application security, you might also find this book pretty enlightining. Everyone's heard of penetration testing and vulnerability assessment, but typically only in the context of attacking remotely over a network. This book shows you how to attack the (more traditional?) software on your local machine, but not to the level of detail or geekiness of "shellcoding."
While I feel the cover price is a bit steep for such a thin book, especially given the amount of "filler" like illustrations, blank pages, figures, etc., the content is superb and the writing style makes it easy to read. I also appreciate that the points made and examples used tend to get me thinking and I'm able to apply the concepts right away--maybe it's just my "tinkerer" mindset but this book seems to encourage the reader to think outside the box and experiment, which I like. I don't give many 5-star ratings but I think this book deserves it.Whittaker strikes again!,
May 30, 2004 The software community has been awaiting for a book like this. It's a almost perfect intro to software security concepts. Again, Whittaker keeps it low in pages and words. In my opinion, the way books should be written (except ones purely theoretical).
Once again Whittaker approachs is hands-on examples. Even if some examples don't apply to modern software the idea behind you is to get you thinking. I've applied the techniques in this book with extremely great results.
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