Hack proofing your Web applications: the only way to stop a hacker is to think like one

One of the reasons I put this book project together is that I believe security professionals should be hackers. In this case, by hackers, I mean people who are capable of defeating security measures. This book purports to teach people how to be hackers. In reality, most of the people who buy this book will do so because they want to protect their own systems and those of their employer. So, how can you prevent break-ins to your system if you don’t know how they are accomplished? How do you test your security measures? How do you make a judgment about how secure a new system is?

When you’re through reading Hack Proofing Your Network, you’ll understand terms like “smashing the stack,” “blind spoofing,” “building a backward bridge,” “steganography,” “buffer overflow” and you’ll see why you need to worry about them. You will learn how to protect your servers from attacks by using a 5-step approach:

1. Planning

2. Network/Machine Recon

3. Research/Develop

4. Execute Attack and Achieve Goal

5. Cleanup

And you’ll understand the theory of hacking, how to fend off local and remote attacks, and how to report and evaluate security problems.

The Only Way to Stop a Hacker Is to Think Like One.
---Ryan Russell, Hack Proofing Your Network