Forwarded from: "Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" <rslade@private> BKPGTMIS.RVW 20040514 "A Practical Guide to Managing Information Security", Steve Purser, 2004, 1-58053-702-2, C$120.50 %A Steve Purser %C 685 Canton St., Norwood, MA 02062 %D 2004 %G 1-58053-702-2 %I Artech House/Horizon %O C$120.50 800-225-9977 fax: 617-769-6334 artech@artech-house.com %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580537022/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580537022/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580537022/robsladesin03-20 %P 259 p. %T "A Practical Guide to Managing Information Security" After years of reviewing security books there were a number of red warning flags in the preface: the perception that a book was needed to address the "entire" subject of security, an insistence on a "pragmatic" and management oriented approach, and the use of a "fictitious but realistic case study" to support the arguments in the work. The final omen came in the author's bio on the back cover: he's a banker. Chapter one is a vague statement that the information technology world is getting riskier, but states outright the irresponsible notion that it is better to provide a less secure product to customers as long as that reduces your "time to market." This is backed up by a great deal of waffling managementspeak that boils down to the idea that we have to learn to work faster *and* cheaper *and* better *and* smarter. The footnotes and references intended to demonstrate that this is a scholarly and researched effort are, instead, a grab bag of varying origin and quality, indicating that the author isn't really familiar with security literature, and used whatever he happened to read. A few security information sources and generic advice on planning is in chapter two. The taxonomy of technical tools, in chapter three, contains no entries for accounting, application development, operations, physical security, assurance, or business continuity, thus indicating the enormous gaps in this work. The artificial structure imposed on the list works against an integrated view of the tools: Purser obviously doesn't understand intrusion detection divisions, or that host-based and net-based systems both provide details--but of differing views. In chapter four, Purser obviously thinks that he is giving us new insight into security assessment, when all that is really being delivered is a generic project planning cycle. Similarly, chapter five deals with business and threat analysis. A vague review of policy documents is in chapter six. Chapter seven takes on that wonderful buzzphrase, "process re-engineering," having almost nothing to do with security at all. A planning cycle comes up again when chapter eight supposedly looks at security architecture. Chapter nine covers security training, in an overly formal way. This book adds almost nothing to the existing security literature, except for a lot of management directed verbiage. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004 BKPGTMIS.RVW 20040514 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@private slade@private rslade@private It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money. - Albert Camus (1913-60) http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/
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