Good information meets a Foundstone commercial

Since I am also an I/T Security Consultant, I decided to pick up this book as a good reference or to learn a few tips that I might not have known.

The good:
I'm about halfway through it and there is plenty of great information in it. If you have a good working knowledge of IP networks and (to a lesser degree) associated protocols like DNS, SMTP, HTTP, etc... This will serve as a great reference. It's also good for newer types who want to learn from a very concise author. It approaches a lot of topics from an attack-defend perspective, demonstrating what you would want to accomplish as a hacker vs. what you would want to accomplish as a security conscious sysadmin.

The bad:
It reads like it was published by a combination of Foundstone's marketing department, the author's personal marketing department, and the technical auditor's personal marketing department. Basically every suggestion they have for a tool will benefit one of them with only minor mentions of some of the industry leading applications. I can't really blame them, but I wouldn't suggest taking their tool suggestions directly to heart without doing a little digging on your own.

Other Reviews

• Good information meets a Foundstone commercial
• Concise, relevant, and feature-rich.
• Pocket Reference Worth Owning
• Keep this one in your hip pocket
• Worth putting on my self