How This Book Is Organized

How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into eight parts — six regular chapter parts, a Part of
Tens, and a part with appendixes. These parts are modular, so you can jump
around from one part to another as needed. Each chapter provides practical
methodologies and best practices you can utilize as part of your ethical hacking
efforts, including checklists and references to specific tools you can use,
as well as resources on the Internet.
Introduction 3
Part I: Building the Foundation
for Ethical Hacking
This part covers the fundamental aspects of ethical hacking. It starts with an
overview of the value of ethical hacking and what you should and shouldn’t
do during the process. You get inside the hacker’s mindset and discover how
to plan your ethical hacking efforts. This part covers the steps involved in
the ethical hacking process, including how to choose the proper tools.
Part II: Putting Ethical Hacking in Motion
This part gets you rolling with the ethical hacking process. It covers several
well-known hack attacks, including social engineering and cracking passwords,
to get your feet wet. The techniques presented are some of the most
widely used hack attacks. This part covers the human and physical elements
of security, which tend to be the weakest links in any information-security
program. After you plunge into these topics, you’ll know the tips and tricks
required to perform common general hack attacks against your systems, as
well as specific countermeasures to keep your information systems secure.
Part III: Network Hacking
Starting with the larger network in mind, this part covers methods to test
your systems for various well-known network infrastructure vulnerabilities.
From weaknesses in the TCP/IP protocol suite to wireless network insecurities,
you find out how networks are compromised using specific methods of
flawed network communications, along with various countermeasures that
you can implement to keep from becoming a victim. This part also includes
case studies on some of the network hack attacks that are presented.
Part IV: Operating System Hacking
Practically all operating systems have well-known vulnerabilities that hackers
often use. This part jumps into hacking three widely used operating systems:
Windows, Linux, and NetWare. The hacking methods include scanning your
operating systems for vulnerabilities and enumerating the specific hosts to
gain detailed information. This part also includes information on exploiting
well-known vulnerabilities in these operating systems, taking over operating
systems remotely, and specific countermeasures that you can implement to
make your operating systems more secure. This part also includes case studies
on operating-system hack attacks.