| Spyware is a term that in many ways has become a commonly used substitute for many other types of intrusions on a host.To compare it to something in the nontechnical world, it would be similar to asking someone for some aspirin, but in return getting acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or some other pain reliever.
Combating Spyware in the Enterprise is the first book published on defending enterprise networks from increasingly sophisticated and malicious spyware. System administrators and security professionals responsible for administering and securing networks ranging in size from SOHO networks up the largest, enterprise networks will learn to use a combination of free and commercial anti-spyware software, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, and host integrity monitoring applications to prevent the installation of spyware, and to limit the damage caused by spyware that does in fact infiltrate their network.
Combating Spyware in the Enterprise begins by examining the various types of insidious spyware and adware currently propagating across the internet and infiltrating enterprise networks. This section closely examines spyware's ongoing transformation from nuisance to malicious, sophisticated attack vector. Next, the book uncovers spyware's intricate economy and network of malicious hackers and criminals. Forensic investigations presented in this section of the book reveal how increasingly sophisticated spyware can compromise enterprise networks via trojans, keystroke loggers, system monitoring, distributed denial of service attacks, backdoors, viruses, and worms.
After close examination of these attack vectors, the book begins to detail both manual and automated techniques for scanning your network for the presence of spyware, and customizing your IDS and IPS to detect spyware. From here, the book goes on to detail how to prevent spyware from being initially installed to mitigating the damage inflicted by spyware should your network become infected. Techniques discussed in this section include slowing the exposure rate; web filtering; using FireFox, MacOSX, or Linux; patching and updating, machine restrictions, shielding, deploying anti-spyware, and re-imaging. The book concludes with an analysis of the future of spyware and what the security community must accomplish to win the ware against spyware. |
