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The Symantec Guide to Home Internet Security
Written by admin on September 6th, 2010 in Computers & Internet.
Tags: Guide, Home, Internet, Security, Symantec
If you’re a techno-geek, it’s easy to find material on how to secure your computing environment. It’s considerably more difficult to find readable and understandable material that you can give to Uncle Joe to prevent him from becoming the latest spam zombie. A good entry into this niche is the book The Symantec Guide to Home Internet Security by Andrew Conry-Murray and Vincent Weafer.
Content: Understanding Internet Risk; Preventing Identity Theft; Firewalls; Getting Rid of Unwanted Guests, Part 1 – Viruses and Worms; Getting Rid of Unwanted Guests, Part 2 – Spyware, Adware, and Trojan Horses; Just Say No To Spam; Securing Windows; Keeping Your Family Safe Online; Wireless and VoIP Security; Privacy and the Internet; Conclusion; Index
This book doesn’t attempt to “entertain” the reader or dazzle them with funny graphics or drawings. It’s just solid material on internet security presented in a clear and concise manner. The target is for nontechnical Windows users, and in my opinion the authors pretty much nail it. The heavy duty jargon is either avoided or explained clearly, and nearly any internet user with a small amount of interest should be able to use this book. Each chapter ends with a Checklist that covers the things you need to do (or things you shouldn’t do) in order to enhance your security. Even if you can’t get Uncle Joe to read the entire chapter, he can get the gist of the useful info in a short page or two. I’d prefer they understand *why* they are doing something, but I’ll take whatever I can get with some people…
If you’re the target audience for this book, it’s a definite recommended purchase and read. And if you’re a techno-geek who’s tired of incessantly cleaning spyware and viruses off the neighbor’s computer, buy them a copy of this book. It’s a relatively cheap way to get your life back…
Rating: 5 / 5
If I were to recommend one book on security to a home user, it would be this book.
First let me be clear, this book does not contain EVERYTHING relative to every subject that falls under the category of Home Internet Security. (That would take a library, not a book.)
This book will not tell you how to use every feature of any particular security software program. This book was never intended to do these things.
This book was intended to shed light on the current Internet security threats, and how to best manage them. And even though this book carries the Symantec brand name (the makers of Norton Anti-Virus and Norton Internet Security), this book is NOT biased to any particular security software. The author painstakingly gives a very thorough overview of each current major security threat or area of concern. (It even includes pending legislation in the U.S. Congress and relative links to related government documents.) The author then provides a very balanced list the best widely accepted software programs and practices to address each security threat. (Many commercially available, shareware, and free options are discussed for each security threat.) The author discusses both prevention and cure, and includes several references to many helpful web sites, security software vendors, security software review sites, technical forums, and even free online security scans.
And while this book educates, each individual reader must still take ownership of his or her own security situation. But since each reader will have different circumstances, this is a very appropriate approach. What this book provides is an EXCELLENT place for the beginning or everyday computer user to learn all about the current security threats facing computer users today. In this intent, this book is very thorough. Using this book as a educational guide and a check list, the reader can progress on to other reading about specific software programs to counter the security risks that have been discussed and actually understand the language of computer and Internet security.
The author consistently puts useful information in front of the reader in the simplest language possible for what, in truth, is very technical subject matter. The author consistently reiterates material across chapters in case the you spot read a single chapter regarding a specific threat you are interested in learning more about. Each chapter also contains a summary checklist of Dos and Don’ts.
If you are learning about computer security risks, this is the best book I’ve seen. I build PCs for customers, and this is going to save me a lot of typing and technical support calls. All of my customers are getting a copy of this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
Windows is today by far the most popular platform for workstation and
desktop computers. However, it has also proven to be the most susceptible
to a wide variety of attacks, many of which being of a distributed
(mass-spreading) nature.
Regardless of the important steps that Microsoft has taken to provide a
sufficient out-of-the box level of security, a default Windows
installation remains far from secure and not likely to survive for
long against the various hazards that access to the Internet hides. Truth
is that few users are even aware of these hazards -until it is too late-, much less being able to make an educated choice among all these protective software titles with fancy names out there.
This is where Symantec Guide to Home Internet Security comes to the rescue,
offering a consistent and easy to comprehend source of information to both
the completely novice users and those with limited knowledge in the
ways of computer security. Without going into unnecessary technical
details, it explains all that a user needs to know to protect his
privacy in windows environments.
For those that do not know, Symantec has been established as one of the
leading companies in the field of computer security globally, offering it’s own
quality software solutions -with best examples the Norton Anti-Virus and
Internet Security suite. However this book is in no way written to promote
or focus to any specific software. It aims to educate the reader so that
he is able to make his own sensible choices of security-related software
and it definitely succeeds in it…
Symantec’s Guide to Home Internet Security is of the few security-related
books that demand no experience or previous knowledge. In it’s about 200
pages, it manages to teach with illustrative examples, tables and images
everything from the ground, without becoming tiresome or confusing to the
reader at any point.
The material covered is well distributed into 10 chapters. More
specifically:
Chapter 1 is a short introduction to the main types of Internet
risks. It shows how the Internet is full of cunning/malicious users that
will do anything to take advantage of every valuable bit of information
that we exchange.
Chapter 2 covers the most well-established techniques of
identity-stealing. It teaches you important methods to prevent them and
react in the event of identity theft.
Chapter 3 explains the logic behind firewalls, in which cases they
can protect us and how they can be used to effectively do so.
Chapters 4 and 5 cover the large subject of Malware (malicious
software). You will learn in what ways Viruses, Worms, Spyware, Adware and
Trojan horses can harm your system, how you can minimize the possibility
of being infected, in what ways you can utilize protective
software as a measure of prevention and restoration and what are the
criteria according to which you should choose those software products.
Chapter 6 continues with the subject of SPAM messages, whether they
just carry annoying advertisements or act as means of Information Phising
and Social Engineering techniques. This chapter will teach you a great deal of these techniques, how to filter out SPAM messages and determine the validity of any potentially harmful message.
Chapter 7 focuses generally on good practices for keeping your
Windows system in good health.
Chapter 8 is dedicated in presenting methods for protecting other
members of your family/environment that will use your computer with
possibly less knowledge about security or underage from unwanted content.
Windows features and extra tools for filtering access to unwanted content
are described, along with recommendations for optimum implementation.
Chapter 9 speaks about security in Wireless/Portable devices and
VoIP applications. Common usage mistakes are pointed with regard to the
severity of their potential exploitation.
Finally, Chapter 10 introduces the basic principles of
cryptography, it’s most widely used applications and possible ways that we
can take advantage of it to protect our privacy.
Conclusion: If you are not familiar at all with security or have your doubts in some
things, this book can literally save you! The material covered is absolutely necessary for the survival of any windows station connected to the Internet and reading Symantec’s Guide to Home Internet Security is probably the easiest way to learn it.
Rating: 4 / 5
Symantec offers a general purpose guide to the dangers of malware, directed at a non technical reader, who might have a home computer to maintain. It shows how you might get email from anywhere in the world, containing spam or bogus offers, like “dates” with attractive women, or money offers from relatives of dead dictators are common come-ons.
The book warns against other perils. For instance, the https connection is used to prevent a third party listening in on your communication with a website. Many financial websites use this, when you are presenting a password. But any website can use https. Even a bogus one. Sometimes the latter might use it, in part to fool people who think that https per se confers validation of that website.
Phishing is correctly described as the most damaging of current Internet frauds. The book outlines characteristics of many phishing messages, and how they often [mis-]direct you to a fradulent site (“pharm”). However, the only solution offered by the text is that the reader should beware of such messages and should not click on links in any that she believes to be phishing. (Let alone enter personal data in a page linked to by the message.) There is no technical answer suggested to defeat phishing. Basically, the reader is on her own. Phishing is still a relatively new phenomenon, at least as compared to spam.
In contrast, the book goes into a bundle of antispam techniques, such as blacklists, whitelists, signatures, Bayesians and reputation filtering.
Rating: 4 / 5
The Symantec Guide to Home Internet Security (Paperback)
by Andrew Conry-Murray, Vincent Weafer
ISBN: 0321356411
I gave this book to my neighbour as I made a lot of frustrating trips to her house tending to her sick windows PC. It has saved me a lot of time and now the lady knows what she is supposed to do and what might happen if she does something that the book tells her not to do. The best part is that she refers to only the checklist portion of the book and gets by with it.
The threat from spam, spyware and adware is so real that I recommend this book to every one who primarily uses a computer at home to email, surf or trade online.
I sorely missed the fact that the book does not have a LARGE PRINT edition.
The coauthor Andrew Conry-Murray is the technology editor at IT Architect, an award-winning publication for information technology professionals.
The coauthor Vincent Weafer has an extensive range of experience, gained from more than 20 years in the information technology industry, ranging from software development, systems engineering, to security research positions.
I give this book 5 stars on a scale of 5, 5 being the highest. I strongly recommend this book.
Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP
Rating: 5 / 5