Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems 2nd Edition

I’m currently endeavoring on a journey to attain the CISSP-ISSAP (architecture level) security certification.While studying for the CISSP exam I was forced to familiarize myself in many areas of security I had previously skirted – thus it was grueling work. Few of the CISSP level exam questions require in-depth knowledge; overall the CISSP requires an eye-in-the-sky view of the entire security field, and how different concepts fit together. At the level of the CISSP there are many good resources and it only took me two weeks of study to prep for a passing score.Studying for the CISSP-ISSAP has been more challenging. Not only is the training availability extremely limited, there are few good study resources for the exam. I understand the ISSAP concentration requires detailed knowledge of the inner workings of many technical systems (and not just those normally administered by security professionals). To pass this exam you not only need to retain that knowledge, but know how it all works in minute detail.A long foreword, but the point being stumbling across this book has been a lucky break. Ross dives into security engineering at the street level and comes up for air only to relate real world cases of security failure and how they can be avoided. Not only does he get down to the detail level required on much of the CISSP-ISSAP curriculum, his book is heavily weighted in the technical control fields that are core to the ISSAP exam.If you’re tasked with engineering security controls in any information system or joining me in studying for the ISSAP concentration I highly recommend this read.This book was published in 2010 making it currently 7 years old. This means there are some glaring exemptions from his review of historical security failures and a bit of weakness in mobile, social and cloud. It should be noted that. Despite being 10 years out of date many of his observations seem eerily prescient given what has occurred during the intervening interval and although lacking in examples pertaining to Social Mobile Analytics and Cloud – he accurately predicted the systemic issues encountered in these areas proving good fundamental coverage still useful in 2017.Trailing note. This is 1080 pages - if you're expecting a casual read look elsewhere, while Ross does an excellent job of keeping this digestible be prepared for some focused attention on every passage.Ross A++

I love this book. I'm not a security professional, just reading it for fun. It's great reading for fun.I especially like all the examples. If you already work in the space, you already know WHY any of this is important. If you don't, then leaving those stories out really makes the subject matter dry and irrelevant. Including it really hits home as to why security is so important to all of us, and it makes the solutions much more intriguing.The author explains things in layman's terms, so although this is a very broad and complex topic, it's very accessible through this book. I also love the author's approach of introducing you to *all* the relevant concerns of security, and then giving you references if you want to learn more (including problems that haven't been solved yet).One thing I found interesting was that having the advantage of living 10 years beyond the end of the book, it becomes clear that many of the current hot topics in security have been predicted by security experts for years. For example, Google just found the first SHA-1 collision, and in the book, Ross reported that an algorithm has been developed to find a collision in 2^69 steps, but it was predicted that it should be possible in 2^60 steps. 10 years later, as I'm reading the book, Google reports they did it with 2^63 computations.If you're a professional, you probably already know all the important stuff from this book. So depending on what you're looking for, it might not be the book for you. If security is this mysterious, complex thing that feels like it's beyond your reach, you'll love this book. It's not like "heads first" security where it just flies by. You may find yourself slogging through the thousand or so pages over a series of eye-straining months. Your husband might get used to seeing you making pained faces around the house while looking at the ceiling as you try to understand something. But it's still fun. Oh also sometimes the author is unexpectedly sarcastic, and that's really fun, too.

a little old but many of the concepts are still relevant and it is incredibly eye opening. I learned much more about current and historical security problems from this book than I did from books less than a year old.

This book was has stories about the information security challenges in all parts of life. For a technical book I surprisingly found it a gripping page turner. A very good book with lots and lots of very good information.

Helicopter view and detailed

Certainly a top 5 in its space. Especially notable for its broad coverage and excellent references to other more detailed material. This is a very worthwhile update from the first edition (which is freely available from the author's web site as a PDF).

A very lengthy and dense book. It is a good reference book, but a horrible choice to have budding professionals read to learn the basics. But there seems to be no dearth of information in here.

I am a college freshman majoring in Computer Science and I have never come across a book so bad at explaining things. Instead of explaining the concepts clearly, the author just keeps giving weird examples which I find very difficult to follow. He just keeps talking about Government issues, policies, banks, finance, firms etc. I don't know maybe it's my lack of general knowledge which makes it really difficult for me to understand this book.