Web Hacking: Attacks and Defense

In the evolution of hacking, firewalls are a mere speed bump. Hacking continues to develop, becoming ever more sophisticated, adapting and growing in ingenuity as well as in the damage that results. Web attacks running over web ports strike with enormous impact. Stuart McClure's new book focuses on Web hacking, an area where organizations are particularly vulnerable. The material covers the web commerce "playground', describing web languages and protocols, web and database servers, and payment systems. The authors bring unparalleled insight to both well- known and lesser known web vulnerabilities. They show the dangerous range of the many different attacks web hackers harbor in their bag of tricks -- including buffer overflows, the most wicked of attacks, plus other advanced attacks. The book features complete methodologies, including techniques and attacks, countermeasures, tools, plus case studies and web attack scenarios showing how different attacks work and why they work.

Stuart McClure, President/CTO, Foundstone, Inc., brings over 12 years of IT and security experience to Foundstone. Stuart is a successful security author, speaker, and teacher whose writings have been translated into dozens of languages around the world.

Stuart is the lead author of the best-selling security book Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions, which has been translated into 19 languages, and has received critical acclaim around the world. In addition, it was ranked the #4 computer book sold on Amazon in 2001, positioning it as the best selling security book ever sold.

Prior to co-founding Foundstone, Stuart was a Senior Manager with Ernst & Young's National Security Profiling Team responsible for project management, attack and penetration reviews, and security technology evaluations. Prior to Ernst & Young, Stuart was a Security Analyst for the InfoWorld Test Center where he covered the security industry and evaluated over 100 network and security products specializing in firewalls, security auditing, intrusion detection, and public key infrastructure (PKI). Prior to InfoWorld, Stuart was the IT manager for State and Local Governments, supporting Novell, NT, Solaris, AIX, and AS/400 platforms.

Stuart holds a B.A. degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder and numerous certifications including ISC2's CISSP, Novell's CNE, and Check Point's CCSE.

Saumil continues to lead the efforts in e-commerce security research at Net-Square. His focus is on researching vulnerabilities with various e-commerce and Web-based application systems. Saumil also provides information security consulting services to Net-Square clients, specializing in ethical hacking and security architecture. He holds a designation of Certified Information Systems Security Professional. Saumil has had more than eight years experience with system administration, network architecture, integrating heterogenous platforms and information security, and has perfomed numerous ethical hacking exercises for many significant companies in the IT area. Saumil is a regular speaker at security conferences such as BlackHat, RSA, etc.

Previously, Saumil was the Director of Indian Operations for Foundstone Inc, where he was instrumental in developing their Web application security assessment methodology, the Web assessment component of FoundScan--Foundstone's Managed Security Services software and was instrumental in pioneering Foundstone's Ultimate Web Hacking training class.

Prior to joining Foundstone, Saumil was a senior consultant with Ernst & Young, where he was responsible for the company's ethical hacking and security architecture solutions. Saumil has also worked at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, as a research assistant and is currently a visiting faculty member there.

Saumil graduated from Purdue University with a master's degree in computer science and a strong research background in operating systems, networking, information security, and cryptography. At Purdue, he was a research assistant in the COAST (Computer Operations, Audit and Security Technology) laboratory. He got his undergraduate degree in computer engineering from Gujarat University, India. Saumil is also the author of The Anti-Virus Book (Tata McGraw-Hill, 1996).

Shreeraj leads the software development and research arm of Net-Square. His role is to develop new methodologies for Web application security assessment and defense. In the past, he has been involved in several Web application assessment projects, protocol analysis, code reviews, ethical Web hacking, etc. He has also been a speaker at RSA and BlackHat.

Shreeraj has vast experience in the fields of security, application development, and network administration in addition to his strong technical background, client management skills, project management, and research methodologies. He was a member of the core development team for the Web application assessment engine at Foundstone. Shreeraj also worked with Chase Manhattan Bank in their middleware application division. Prior to joining Chase, Shreeraj worked with IBM's Domino Application Server team.

Shreeraj graduated from Marist College with a master's degree in computer science. He received his MBA at the Nirma Institute of Managment, India. He got his bachelor's degree in instrumentation and controls engineering from Gujarat University, India. Shreeraj has also authored quite a few white papers during his academic period both in India and USA.