Protection and Security on the Information Superhighway

From one of the world's leading experts on computer security: the risks of being online and how to protect your information assets.

The FBI estimates that each year as much as $5 billion is lost to computer crime. And, incredibly, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Weaknesses in information systems have also been exploited to gain the upper hand in negotiations, ruin reputations, win military conflicts, and even commit murder. Just how serious is the problem of information security and how can it affect your life? How vulnerable is your organization's information system? And most importantly, what can you do to protect yourself from the bandits, terrorists, and cyberthugs who roam the information highway?

Now get the answers to these and other critical questions in the most penetrating and broad-ranging investigation ever written on the problems of protection and security on the information highway. Moving from one seemingly unbelievable case study to the next, Frederick B. Cohen, one of the world's foremost experts on computer security:

• Explore the entire spectrum of communications systems, including the Internet, cable television, microwave and satellite communications, electronic banking and trading, and more
• Reveals the full maggnitude of the problem of computer security in a world ever more dependent on electronic information systems
• Examines the impact of faulty security on large and small businesses, government, the military, and individuals
• Offers practical steps organizations and individuals can take to protect themselves against security breaches

1. Introduction and Overview
1. Preview
2. The National Infomation Infrastructure
2. A Growling Dependency
1. Technology Marches On
2. Survival Dependencies
3. Personal and Business Dependency
4. National Survival Dependencies
5. Indirect Dependency
6. The Information Superhighway
3. The Disrupters Are Among Us
1. Computer Accidents
2. Intentional Events
3. A Classification of Disruptions
4. The Disrupters
5. Motivation
6. The Magnitude and Scope of the Problem
7. Adding It All Up
4. Asleep at the Switch
1. A History of Secrecy
2. Ignorance Is Not Bliss
3. The Birth of the Personal Computer
4. A Suppressed Technology
5. The Universities Fail Us
6. An Industry of Charlatans
7. Information Assurance Ignored
8. Current Disruption Defenses Depend on People
9. The Rest of the World Responds
5. Protecting Your Information Assets
1. Information Protection
2. Infrastructures are Different than Other Systems
3. A Piecemeal Approach
4. An Organizational Perspective
5. Some Sample Scenarios
6. Strategy and Tactics
7. The Cost of Protection
8. An Incremental Protection Process
6. Protection Posture Case Studies
1. How to do a Protection Posture Assessment
2. Case Study 1: A Ma and Pa Business
3. Case Study 2: A (Not-So) Small Business
4. Case Study 3: A Big Business
5. Case Study 4: A Military System
6. Case Study 5: The DoD and the Nation as a Whole
7. Summary and Conclusions

1. Details of the NII
1. Information Channels
2. The Evolution of the Information Infrastructure
3. The NII Today
4. Information Service Providers
5. Possible Futures
2. Case Studies
1. Case Study 3: XYZ Corporation
2. Case Study 4: The Alma System
3. Case Study 5: The DoD and the Nation as a Whole

Fred is a controversial author as usual. Personally, I tend to agree with him. Maybe it is because we share the view that most security professionals are qualified morons.