Computer Security for the Home and Small Office

by Thomas C. Greene

Computer Security for the Home and Small Office addresses the long-neglected security needs of users in the home, company workstation and SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) categories, emphasizing client-side security, user privacy, Internet privacy and data hygiene. The basic purpose is to provide the home and SOHO user, and the work-at-home corporate user, a thorough, realistic assessment of the security and privacy risks they face, to instruct...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590593162
• ISBN13: 9781590593165
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Apress
• Length: 405 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Good material with definite biases...

I recently finished reading and reviewing the book Computer Security for the Home and Small Office by Thomas C. Greene (Apress). While it does seem to lose focus a bit towards the end and has a definite bias (which I agree with!), the overall content and information is vital to know and understand.The chapter breakdown:Introducing the Dark Side; Vectors; Social Engineering; From Newbie to Power User; Treasure Hunt; The Open-Source Escape Hatch; Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing; Glossary; Procedures, Processes, and Ports; Online Resources; IndexFirst off, this is a highly readable and interesting book on how to secure your computer systems against attacks and keep your data private. The author is very vocal in his opinions, and you'll quickly learn where those biases are. He is a major proponent of using Linux and ditching Windows. The only reason you should use IE is because you're forced to. Even with that, he does go into each system and explain in detail what you need to do in order to harden your system. This includes shutting down unnecessary services, running anti-virus software, and using firewalls. All the stuff you'd expect to see in a book like this, and he delivers. The detail is sufficient for most intermediate users to follow, and after you're done you'll have a system that most script kiddies will bypass as it's not worth the time or effort to crack.Starting in the Trust Nothing chapter, he starts to rant about how security is portrayed in the media, along with the potential conflicts of interest between vunerabilities and the companies who fix them. While interesting material, the focus on home/small office seems to get lost in the mix. I don't know if it's just the style of the writing or what, but I was starting to wonder if we could just move on...Windows bashers will love the book, Windows defenders will think he's overly critical of the platform. Either way, this is material you can't afford to ignore in today's environment.

As timely as it is up-to-date and "user friendly"

It seems like every few weeks there are fresh announcements of invasions by computer viruses, worms, identity thefts, spam scams, and other unwanted (often destructive) incursion attempts through the internet. Computer Security For The Home And Small Office by computer security expert Thomas C. Greene is as timely as it is up-to-date and "user friendly". The informed and informative text is organized into seven chapters: Introducing the Dark Side; Vectors; Social Engineering; From Newbie to Power User; Treasure Hunt: The Open-Source Escape Hatch; Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing. Enhanced with a glossary, and appendices on "Procedures, Processes, and Ports" and "Online Resources", Computer Security For The Home And Small Office is a compendium of immediately applicable information presented with a minimum of jargon so that even the most novice of beginners can take steps to insure against the successful invasion of their privacy; protect their systems and databases from exterior corruption; and defend against any form of attack or unwanted intrusion. Every personal, professional, corporate, and community library system should have on hand a reference copy of Thomas Greene's Computer Security For The Home And Small Office.

Very Informative and Helpful

I am a home user. Greene's book is very instructive and untwists much of the complex structure of computer security. It is well written and witty in places. His detailed modifications to Win XP would have been nice to incorporate but I am a Win 98 user.

Awesome security treatise for layman!

I have to admit that when I just started reading the book, I only hoped to find the entertaining read, written by a cool and famous technology journalist. However, it looks like I was up for a pleasant surprise and the book was way better than that, event delivering some new material on security. It is important to note that the book is not targeted for security experts in its coverage of material, but presents a clearly written and entertaining "story" of computer security. It covers threats and vulnerabilities, social and technical issues, various platforms (focusing on Linux and Windows). The book possesses a noticeable anti-Windows bias, justified by security history of this platform. Open source solutions such as Linux and Mozilla are recommended by the author. In fact, he implies that in the ideal world only experts should be allowed to run Windows (since it is so hard to secure), while the rest should go with Linux, which is more transparent and behaves predictably (which greatly contributes to its security).The book offers an amazing breadth of coverage, starting from simple Linux and Windows security tips all the way to malware (such as spyware, viruses and worms), basics of security risk analysis, privacy abuses, erasing trace of activity from computers and even "cyberterrorism". I also liked how well the author presented encryption - usually a difficult subject for security novices.Highly recommended for those curious about computer security and pretty much everyone using a computer (and, thus likely fighting malware and various bugs). At times, the book does go to more in-depth subjects such as NAT, Windows registry and Linux file system structure, but even in those areas the style seems perfectly acceptable for a security neophyte.Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH is a Senior Security Analyst with a major security information management company. He is the author of the book "Security Warrior" (O'Reilly, 2004). His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org