Rootkits For Dummies~tqw~ darksiderg

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Rootkits For Dummies
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General Information
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Type.................: Ebook
Part Size............: 7,249,554 bytes
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Posted by............: ~tqw~
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Release Notes
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I really enjoyed this book. I think Rootkits for Dummies is a necessary read and
up to date for most anyone who has someone securing one's computer for work or
home use to go online. The book is not for a very light user who goes online
occasionally, but it is definitely a worth while read to those who setup PCs,
and laptops for others who go to online. There are so many things people must do
to 'harden' their PC in order for it to stay safe relatively speaking online.
Malicious activity online has grown expotentionally over the last few years.
Viruses, malware, and rootkits have become much more sophisticated and harder to
detect for those infected. There are so many new users who go online with their
PC no adequately protected and without solid knowledge of defending themselves,
thus making them part of the malware problem. Eventhough I consider myself a
computer user at the intermediate-to-advanced level: meaning I believe know a
lot about web related applications and internet technology but my knowledge is
very limited in areas such as hardware. My own personal knowledge of malware is
spotty at best. In the area of cyber criminality, my niche knowledge is that of
phishing scams (emails and websites set up to steal identities, credit card
and/or banking information from unususpecting end-users) Consider this, as
recently as 1999, I had little or no protection on my home PC when I went
online. That year was the first time I tried anti-virus software, F-PROT. I was
still using dialup at the time, but by that time, there were plenty of viruses
out there. Nowadays, if one hooks up a PC loaded with Windows XP unprotected, it
takes less than an hour for it to get infected. This book fills in the gaps for
me of my own spotty knowledge. There are anti-rootkit programs recommended in
the book that I already use, but there are still many I have not used yet and
look forward to. This book, like most of the Dummies series, is set up in a
reference format. I have not had a chance to use the accompanying CD, but I know
there are some very good useful freeware products one can use to defend oneself
online. I will come back and update this information after I have used some of
the recommended programs. My favorite chapter is 2 which mentions the three Rs
of Survivable Systems: resistance (being difficult for malware attack),
recognition (detecting and identifying infection) and recovery (bouncing back
after a malware attack). This chapter helps me visualize what I should to
protect my PC. The other chapters tell you how to secure your network, hard
drive, your applications, your OS and everything else that could possibly get
one infected when going online. The book has an occasional funny cartoon about
the very topic of rootkits. It also contains a very useful index helping one to
find the page for the topic they are interested in. One of the best finds of the
book for me personally is making an backup of my entire hard drive using ISO
image files. This is a great find for me personally as I recently had a hard
drive failure and I only backed up files I created and some programs, but not
the essential files related to the brand of PC I have. I also lost the key to my
Windows XP home OS. One thing many infected end-users do not know about is that
they can post their problems to helpful free anti-malware websites. There is a
chapter in this book outlining the ones the authors recommend. I want to mention
Castlecops, in particular, as I volunteer at that very helpful website myself.
There are some great folks deeply dedicated in helping people who are infected
for free. This type of effort is probably still not well known to many people
who are online, even for some who have been online for years.
Table Of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I: Getting to the Root of Rootkits 7
Chapter 1: Much Ado about Malware 9
Chapter 2: The Three Rs of Survivable Systems 25
Part II: Resistance Is NOT Futile 35
Chapter 3: Practicing Good Computer Hygiene 37
Chapter 4: Staying Secure Online 61
Chapter 5: Patching and Updating Your System and Software 101
Chapter 6: Blurring the Lines of Network Security 117
Part III: Giving Rootkits the Recognition They Deserve 149
Chapter 7: Getting Windows to Lie to You: Discovering How Rootkits Hide 151
Chapter 8: Sniffing Out Rootkits 179
Chapter 9: Dealing with a Lying, Cheating Operating System 231
Part IV: Readying for Recovery 301
Chapter 10: Infected! Coping with Collateral Damage 303
Chapter 11: Preparing for the Worst: Erasing the Hard Drive 323
Part V: The Part of Tens 336
Chapter 12: Ten (Plus One) Rootkits and Their Behaviors 337
Chapter 13: Ten (Plus Two) Security Sites That Can Help You 347
Appendix: 355
Index 367
Product Details
* ISBN: 0471917109
* ISBN-13: 9780471917106
* Format: Paperback, 384pp
* Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
* Pub. Date: December 2006
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