The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers [Hardcover]

Over two years ago I read and reviewed 'The Art of Deception,' also by Mitnick and Simon. I thought that book was 'original, entertaining, [and] scary.' Those same adjectives apply to 'The Art of Intrusion' (TAOI). While I also add 'disappointing' and 'disturbing' to the description of TAOI, sections of the new book make it an absolute must-read. If you want to understand the consequences of systematic, long-term compromise of your enterprise, you must read and heed the lessons of TAOI.

This book may provide the closest look inside an intruder's mind the security community has yet seen. There is simply no substitute for understanding the methodology, goals, and determination of a skilled intruder. Chapter 8 brings the world of the enemy to life, describing separate incidents where crackers stole intellectual property from enterprise networks. These intruders were patient and methodical, taking months to locate, acquire, and transfer their prey. I have encountered this sort of adversary as a real security consultant (explanation follows), but never read supposed first-hand accounts from the enemy's point of view. Chapter 8 alone makes the book worth purchasing.

Why is the book 'disappointing' and 'disturbing' then? I was repeatedly disgusted to read about so-called 'security consultants' who are 'published authors on security topics' (p. 168), who describe themselves as 'white-hats' but acknowledge defacing sites 'where security was so shoddy someone needed to be taught a lesson (p. 143), and who are 'respected security professionals by day and become a black-hat hacker by night, honing the skills that pay their mortgage by hacking into the most resilient software companies on the planet' (p. 166). Attaching the label 'security professional' to these criminals -- still active by some accounts -- is a crime itself. At least Mitnick perpetrated his crime and did his time. These people, however skilled, are a black mark on the security community -- they literally perform the crimes for which their 'skills' are then required. The mitigating factor for me is that these intruders shared their stories for the benefit of the community. For that I am grateful, but I'd also like to hear they've hung up their black hats!

In some places Mitnick seems to close to his subjects to render a fair opinion of their skills. Chapter 5 talks about Adrian Lamo, named by Mitnick 'The Robin Hood Hacker.' It begins with a story about rescuing a kitten from a 'dirty storm drain' that belongs in an after-school TV special, and smells of social engineering on Mr. Lamo's part. After reading about this 'purist... the thinking man's hacker,' we learn his only real skill was 'exploiting misconfigured proxy servers.' When asked what operating system the New York Times was running when he infiltrated it via proxy server, 'Adrian answered that he doesn't know. 'I don't analyze a network that way.' I doubt someone who 'secured' a proxy server at Excite@Home by cutting the cat 5 cable to the box knows anything more than how to use his 'favorite tool... ProxyHunter' and his 'intellectual gift of finding misconfigured proxy servers' (p. 112). This mischaracterization of Adrian Lamo hurts the authors' credibility, at least as far as chapter 5 goes. I felt the same sense of being too close to the characters when reading of 'two convicted murderers' in chapter 3, although their story should catch the eyes of prison wardens everywhere.

Besides the war stories in TAOI, I found many of the authors' insights appropriate and helpful. In places Mitnick and Simon describe how victims never believe they are compromised, and when they are shown proof, they 'figure they just dropped the ball on this one occasion' (p. 216). Repeatedly through the book, network security monitoring is offered as a means of incident detection and response. I wish those who advocate the supposed defender's advantage of knowing their network would read this gem on p. 164: 'I knew their network better than anyone there knew it. If they were having problems, I could probably have fixed them.' This is so true, because the intruder's interest goes so much deeper than an administrator who sees security as part of his over-stressed and under-resourced job.

Not all of the book was written from the perspective of black hats masquerading as 'security professionals' by day. Chapter 4 features a tale by former Boeing employee Don Boelling, a real security professional. Other chapters present the stories of unnamed penetration testers, all of which I found intriguing.

Despite my negative opinion of the ethics of some of this book's contributors, I still highly recommend reading TAOI. I suspect the validity of some of the earlier reviews, as three are posted by people whose only review is for TAOI and one is by TAOI co-author W.L. Simon! Does the social engineering never end?

Love him or hate him Kevin Mitnick is the most celebrated hacker of our time. The Art of Intrusion gives the public and security practitioners a rare glimpse into the minds of hackers and their dedication in accomplishing their work.

This book is highly entertaining for everyone, security practitioner or not. I've never hacked my way into a video poker machine, but Kevin Mitnick and William Simon made me feel as if I had been there with a wearable computer in my shoe tapping out the codes that would let me beat the casino. Mitnick and Simon do a great job of breaking down technology in terms everyone can understand.

Chapters 1-5 take you along with hackers as they beat the casinos in Vegas, hack for terrorists, create a network out of nothing in a Texas prison and break into the New York Times.

Chapter 6 takes a slight detour to discuss penetration testing, used to legitimately test vulnerabilities at companies. This was a very insightful chapter for me and some of the techniques will be helpful to me. Some companies will never know (and sometimes don't want to know) how vulnerable they are. It is always better to find out your vulnerabilities from the "white hats" instead of finding out about vulnerabilities from the "black hats". One is a fixed cost the other isn't.

Chapters 7 through 9 take you back into the world of the hackers as they hack into banks, steal intellectual property and hack a prison transport company.

Chapter 10 describes social engineering attacks and countermeasures. If you want to learn about social engineering, what better source the Kevin Mitnick, the world's most notorious social engineer.

Chapter 11 contains a few short takes on some hackers which, I guess, Mitnick and Simon didn't feel deserved a full chapter.

I was a little dismayed to read in Chapter 6 about Robert, the "respected security consultant", who plays hacker at night. I think the term, respected, must be only in this hackers mind. A better term would have been "deceptive security consultant". I was not satisfied with argument that this person hacked into computers out of curiosity and the need for a challenge. There are many legitimate (and paying) ways to satisfy your curiosity and challenge that are completely legal.

If you take anything from this book it must be the tenacity of the hackers. Some of the compromises took months or years to carry out. In the process of committing the compromise the hacker learned more about the systems than the people charged with taking care of them on a daily basis. The hackers went undetected for months and years, sometimes grabbing information from the CEO's computer. This is very disturbing.

I highly recommended reading Art Of Intrusion for everyone. The book immerses the reader into a world very few of us will ever see, one of the underbellies created by our reliance of technology. The problem of hackers will only get worse and the Art of Intrusion lets us know what we are up against.

These are all tales from the crypt - known exploits in some shape or form. The book simply "personalizes" them a bit more and adds a bit of color.

Continuing to use his legacy, Kevin Mitnick continues to give us his best Rod Serling tour of the dark side of the internet. He goes out of his way in the introduction to thank William Simon who did a good job increasing the readability. Although there are some technical parts, they're not excruciatingly unbearable and Simon does a good job eliminating much technical jargon.

The question is though who to recommend this book to? The seasoned pros know it all, the novices are too busy exploring on their own.

It's probably best suited as supplemental reading for a course on enterprise security management and I would include it in my class since the vignettes make interesting case studies and as a professor I could easily springboard into many a security concept above and beyond the basics of the chapter.

Mitnick, being the consummate social engineer, couldn't help but include a section on this topic and you can see how comfortable he is with this. It flows naturally.

A concern overall is whether this is really a tongue in cheek guide for the "on the fringe" hacker, and rather than looking in deep dark chat rooms can find all they need here to launch the next latest and greatest exploit. There are no moral lessons or lecturing so one can only wonder whether the it's true that the best camouflage is broad daylight since he who laughs last, laughs best.

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