The Myths of Security

by Viega, John

• ISBN13: 9780596523022
• ISBN10: 0596523025
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-29
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

"The Myths of Security" takes you to the inside of the professional security world. Covering topics ranging from anti-virus software to the NTSA, this book is provocative, insightful, and always controversial. Is OS X really more secure than WIndows? What are antivirus vendors really thinking about? What does anti-virus software actually accomplish, and is a poor solution better than no solution at all? How do black-hats plan their careers? Why don't computer users care about privacy? What's does the future hold for the security industry? Written by a long-term veteran of the security industry, this book is the ultimate insider's guide.

Author Biography

John Viega is CTO of the Software-as-a-Service Business Unit at
McAfee, and was previously Vice President, Chief Security Architect at
McAfee. He is an active advisor to several security companies,
including Fortify and Bit9, and is the author of a number of security
books, including Network Security with OpenSSL (O'Reilly) and Building
Secure Software (Addison-Wesley).

John is responsible for numerous software security tools and is the
original author of Mailman, the popular mailing list manager. He has
done extensive standards work in the IEEE and IETF, and co-invented
GCM, a cryptographic algorithm that NIST (US Department of Commerce)
has standardized. He holds a B.A. and M.S. from the University of
Virginia.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xiii
The Security Industry Is Broken	p. 1
Security: Nobody Cares!	p. 5
It's Easier to Get "Owned" Than You Think	p. 9
It's Good to Be Bad	p. 19
Test of a Good Security Product: Would I Use It?	p. 25
Why Microsoft's Free AV Won't Matter	p. 29
Google Is Evil	p. 33
Why Most AV Doesn't Work (Well)	p. 41
Why AV Is Often Slow	p. 49
Four Minutes to Infection?	p. 55
Personal Firewall Problems	p. 59
Call It "Antivirus"	p. 65
Why Most People Shouldn't Run Intrusion Prevention Systems	p. 71
Problems with Host Intrusion Prevention	p. 75
Plenty of Phish in the Sea	p. 79
The Cult of Schneier	p. 87
Helping Others Stay Safe on the Internet	p. 91
Snake Oil: Legitimate Vendors Sell It, Too	p. 95
Living in Fear?	p. 99
Is Apple Really More Secure?	p. 105
Ok, Your Mobile Phone Is Insecure; Should You Care?	p. 109
Do AV Vendors Write Their Own Viruses?	p. 113
One Simple Fix for the AV Industry	p. 115
Open Source Security: A Red Herring	p. 119
Why SiteAdvisor Was Such a Good Idea	p. 127
Is There Anything We Can Do About Identity Theft?	p. 129
Virtualization: Host Security's Silver Bullet?	p. 135
When Will We Get Rid of All the Security Vulnerabilities?	p. 139
Application Security on a Budget	p. 145
"Responsible Disclosure" Isn't Responsible	p. 153
Are Man-in-the-Middle Attacks a Myth?	p. 163
An Attack on PKI	p. 167
HTTPS Sucks; Let's Kill It!	p. 171
CrAP-TCHA and the Usability/Security Tradeoff	p. 175
No Death for the Password	p. 181
Spam Is Dead	p. 187
Improving Authentication	p. 191
Cloud Insecurity?	p. 197
What AV Companies Should Be Doing (AV 2.0)	p. 203
VPNs Usually Decrease Security	p. 213
Usability and Security	p. 215
Privacy	p. 217
Anonymity	p. 219
Improving Patch Management	p. 221
An Open Security Industry	p. 223
Academics	p. 225
Locksmithing	p. 227
Critical Infrastructure	p. 229
Epilogue	p. 231
Index	p. 233
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