Computer Security Fundamentals

Citation

Easttom, W. (2022). Computer Security Fundamentals (5th ed.). Pearson IT Certification (Pearson).

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition runs to about 576 pages in fifteen chapters, followed by a glossary and two appendices: a list of resources and the answers to the book's multiple-choice questions. The publisher presents it as a one-volume introduction for beginners and states that every chapter has exercises, projects and review questions. Each chapter in the table of contents begins with an introduction and ends with a summary. The order moves from basic concepts and networking, through the main kinds of attack, to defences, policy and assessment, and finally to investigation and engineering.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Computer Security

Sets out how seriously threats should be taken, the types of threats, how to assess the likelihood of an attack on a network, basic security terminology, general concepts and approaches, how legal issues bear on network security, and where to find security resources online.

Chapter 2: Networks and the Internet

The networking background the rest of the book needs: network basics, how the Internet works and its history, basic network utilities, other network devices, more advanced communication topics, and cloud computing.

Chapter 3: Cyber Stalking, Fraud, and Abuse

Crime aimed at individuals: how Internet fraud works, identity theft, cyber stalking, and how people can protect themselves against cybercrime.

Chapter 4: Denial of Service Attacks

Explains denial of service by illustrating an attack, then surveys common tools, the weaknesses DoS attacks exploit, specific attack types, real-world examples and defences.

Chapter 5: Malware

Viruses, Trojan horses, the buffer-overflow attack, spyware and other forms of malware, with a closing section on detecting and eliminating viruses and spyware.

Chapter 6: Techniques Used by Hackers

Follows an attack from basic terminology through the reconnaissance phase to actual attacks and the creation of malware, then covers penetration testing and the dark web.

Chapter 7: Industrial Espionage in Cyberspace

Treats information as an asset and examines what industrial espionage is, real cases, how it happens and how to protect against it, along with trade secrets, the Industrial Espionage Act and spear phishing.

Chapter 8: Encryption

The book's cryptography chapter: basics and history, modern symmetric methods, public-key encryption, PGP, how to tell legitimate from fraudulent encryption products, digital signatures, hashing, MAC and HMAC, steganography, cryptanalysis, the cryptography used on the Internet, and a section on quantum computing and cryptography.

Chapter 9: Computer Security Technology

The defensive toolkit: virus scanners, firewalls, antispyware, intrusion detection systems, digital certificates, SSL/TLS, virtual private networks and Wi-Fi security.

Chapter 10: Security Policies

What a policy is, important standards, user policies and system administration policies, handling security breaches, access control, development policies, the relation of standards, guidelines and procedures, disaster recovery, zero trust and important laws.

Chapter 11: Network Scanning and Vulnerability Scanning

How to assess and secure a computer system, how to scan a network, the testing and scanning standards that apply, and when and how to get professional help.

Chapter 12: Cyber Terrorism and Information Warfare

Cases of cyber terrorism, weapons of cyber warfare, economic, military and general attacks, SCADA systems, information warfare, future trends, defence, and terrorist recruitment and communication, including Tor and the dark web.

Chapter 13: Cyber Detective

Investigation using public information: general and company searches, court records and criminal checks, Usenet, Google and the Maltego tool.

Chapter 14: Introduction to Forensics

General guidelines for evidence, finding evidence on a PC and in system logs, recovering deleted files, operating-system utilities, the Windows Registry, mobile forensics, forensic certification, expert witnesses and other kinds of forensics.

Chapter 15: Cybersecurity Engineering

A short closing chapter that defines cybersecurity engineering and introduces relevant standards, SecML and modelling.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Foundations

• Threat assessment: identifying types of threat and judging how likely an attack on a given network is.
• Security terminology and approaches: the basic vocabulary and the general strategies for protecting systems.
• Network fundamentals: how networks and the Internet work, and the utilities used to inspect them.

Chapters 3–7: Attacks and Threats

• Fraud and identity theft: crime that targets individuals over the Internet.
• Denial of service: attacks that make a system unavailable rather than stealing from it.
• Malware: viruses, Trojan horses, spyware and related software, and the buffer-overflow attack.
• Reconnaissance and penetration testing: how attackers gather information, and how defenders authorise attacks to test their own systems.
• Industrial espionage: theft of information as a business asset, including through spear phishing.

Chapters 8–11: Defences and Policy

• Symmetric and public-key encryption: the two families of ciphers, with digital signatures, hashing and MACs.
• Firewalls and intrusion detection: technologies that filter traffic and detect attacks.
• Security policy: written rules for users, administrators and developers, backed by standards and law.
• Zero trust: a security model that the book places in its chapter on policies.
• Vulnerability scanning: systematic testing of systems and networks for weaknesses.

Chapters 12–15: Wider Threats, Investigation and Engineering

• Information warfare and SCADA: attacks on states and on industrial control systems.
• Open-source investigation: gathering information about people and companies from public records and tools.
• Digital forensics: finding, recovering and handling evidence from computers and phones.
• Cybersecurity engineering: applying engineering methods, standards and models to security.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Breadth for a first course. The fifteen chapters range from personal fraud to cyber warfare, policy, forensics and engineering, which matches the publisher's description of a one-volume introduction to concepts, terminology, technologies and skills. A student finishes with a map of the field rather than one corner of it.
• Practical, tool-level orientation. Section headings such as basic network utilities, penetration testing, Maltego, the Windows Registry and recovering deleted files show that the book works with the tools and artefacts a practitioner meets, and Chapter 11 is devoted to scanning one's own network.
• Policy, law and people alongside technology. Security policies, legal issues, important laws, trade secrets and social engineering each have a place, which suits programmes in information systems or IT management as well as computing.
• Built-in study apparatus. Exercises, projects and review questions in every chapter, a glossary, and an appendix with answers to the multiple-choice questions make it workable for self-study and for courses that test by quiz. The fifth edition also brings in current topics such as cloud computing, zero trust and quantum computing in cryptography.

Limitations

• Survey depth. Encryption, from history to quantum computing, fits into one chapter of about 40 pages, and cybersecurity engineering into one short chapter. Students who need to understand how algorithms or protocols work will need a dedicated text.
• Technical topics treated briefly or as policy. Access control appears as a section of the security-policy chapter, and the table of contents has no chapter on operating-system security or secure programming; the buffer overflow is one section of the malware chapter.
• Uneven organisation. Personal crime (Chapter 3) comes before the technical attack chapters, and the dark web is discussed in both Chapter 6 and Chapter 12, so the book reads more as a set of topics than as a cumulative argument.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the broad, non-mathematical starting point for the security and cryptography course. Paar, Pelzl and Güneysu's Understanding Cryptography is the natural companion for Chapter 8: it explains how the main ciphers and protocols actually work, developing the mathematics as needed. Stallings and Brown's Computer Security: Principles and Practice covers threats, cryptography, access control and network and software security in more technical depth and assumes some knowledge of operating systems and networks, so it is the usual next step.

Ross Anderson's Security Engineering (free from the author's website) is a large treatment of building dependable systems with case studies from banking, healthcare and other sectors, and is good further reading after Chapters 10 and 15. Matt Bishop's Computer Security: Art and Science treats security as a discipline with formal models of policy and access control, and Katz and Lindell's Introduction to Modern Cryptography is a proof-based course; both are much more demanding and assume courses in discrete mathematics and operating systems.

How to Use This Book

The book suits first-year computing and information-systems students, students from other fields taking a security elective, and anyone preparing for a security career who wants a broad overview. Basic computer literacy is enough; Chapter 2 supplies the networking background.

• Core: Chapters 1–2, then the attack chapters 4–6, then the defence chapters 8–11. This sequence gives the essential vocabulary of threats and countermeasures.
• By interest: Chapters 3, 7 and 12 extend the threat picture to individuals, businesses and states; Chapters 13–14 introduce investigation and forensics and suit students considering that specialism.
• Last: Chapter 15 is a short orientation to engineering approaches.

Do the projects that involve tools, such as the network utilities in Chapter 2 and the scans in Chapter 11, only on machines and networks you are authorised to use. Use the review questions to check vocabulary, then read a cryptography text such as Paar and colleagues alongside Chapter 8 to see how the methods it names actually work.