Cybersecurity Essentials, reviewed

By @SimonCocking review of Cybersecurity Essentials 1st Edition Charles J. Brooks (Author), Christopher Grow (Author), Philip Craig (Author), Donald Short (Author). Available from Amazon here.

Cybersecurity Essentials provides a comprehensive introduction to the field, with expert coverage of essential topics required for entry-level cybersecurity certifications. An effective defense consists of four distinct challenges: securing the infrastructure, securing devices, securing local networks, and securing the perimeter. Overcoming these challenges requires a detailed understanding of the concepts and practices within each realm. This book covers each challenge individually for greater depth of information, with real-world scenarios that show what vulnerabilities look like in everyday computing scenarios. Each part concludes with a summary of key concepts, review questions, and hands-on exercises, allowing you to test your understanding while exercising your new critical skills.

Cybersecurity jobs range from basic configuration to advanced systems analysis and defense assessment. This book provides the foundational information you need to understand the basics of the field, identify your place within it, and start down the security certification path.

• Learn security and surveillance fundamentals
• Secure and protect remote access and devices
• Understand network topologies, protocols, and strategies
• Identify threats and mount an effective defense

Cybersecurity Essentials gives you the building blocks for an entry level security certification and provides a foundation of cybersecurity knowledge.

This book does very much what it says it does on the blurb, and thoroughly, effectively, and visually too, with many use illustrations throughout the book too. With some of the best hacks coming via social engineering and / or exploiting physical weaknesses in your building’s perimeters, the early sections in this book drill down into the nitty gritty of what a secure, or insecure boundary really looks like. Routers, networks, and human usage are all carefully examined too, and many common weakspots are identified, discussed, and various solutions proposed. For those who need to study this area for various network security and system admin qualifications this is useful and timely publication. As with everything else in the hacker / defender area it is naturally a fast moving topic and you would always be advised to stay up to date with the latest challenges and interesting hacker methodologies out there, however this book is still a useful tool and point of reference too.

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