Introduction to Computer Security

This book provides an overarching coverage of the concepts of computer security in a very well organized and informative manner, however I did feel it was just a tad bit lacking in depth for topics that are highly central to cybersecurity. There are interesting expansions on topics such as how physical lock mechanisms work (lockpicking), but some of this material seems to be somewhat irrelevant to computer security directly. It seems that more expansion could have been provided for instance on Intrusion Prevention/Detection Systems or something else.Overall though, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a broad coverage of Computer Security. One of the better text books I've read.

Pros: usually not too technical interesting broad scope doesn't require too much background knowledge (it's an intro book) up-to-date (as of beginning 2012 at least)Cons: some explanations can be very unclear (ex. the Kerberos explanation doesn't make complete sense) some questions ask for solutions that aren't covered in the book some questions are unclearWhile the book can be okay in parts (mainly because I thought it was interesting), while trying to do homework from it I had a significant amount of trouble. Many questions are very unclear and extremely frustrating to try to solve. Some explanations require a lot of extra online work and research to fully understand.

So, I bought this book because it was required for a class I was taking. It was actually pretty easy to read, so I didn't really have to force myself to read it. It was quite refreshing compared to other textbooks I've had to read. Not that I'll probably read it as a night-time story, but I still have it, just in case for future reference. So, overall, not too bad.

We are using this textbook for our Computer Security class. Since it is an introductory textbook, don't expect it to go too deep into any subject, but it does a good job at covering the basics with examples to give you a better idea of the vulnerabilities of computer systems and the techniques to protect them. Each chapter includes a reading list at the end listing all the sources consulted for the material covered in the chapter and for further study.

Very good intro book with lots of detail and easy to read. i found some mistakes though, the author mentions that one of the disadvantages of role-based access control is that it is not implemented in current operating systems, umm... Active Directory? Solaris?

It is clear the author has a good understanding of the topic. The book is over priced. The author frequently uses math formulas to explain things that are not simplified by math formulas. There is a lot of good basic knowledge in the book for someone beginning in Computer Security. I gave it 2 stars because I would have paid a max of $20 for this book, and after my class which used this book, the most valuable thing I learned was a trick for creating strong but easy to remember password.

Got the job done

Received as Posted

A boring read, chapters are long and its not the most exciting stuff. Talks more about concepts, and if your looking for how to hack or how to program good security software this will give you the fundamentals, but overall its dry.

Book content is OK. Too bad it came DAMAGED from Amazon.