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Cisco Secure Internet Security Solutions is straight from Cisco's course sheets and it starts off fairly strong. It goes over the basic Internet attacks and explains DoS, SYN floods, SNMP problems and other typical hacker attacks in clear language that's aimed at the mid-level Cisco professional It then covers some of the solutions Cisco has created for the standard array of l33t probes and system invasions. And in a very nice feature it actually provides a set of simple global commands that it suggests should be configured on all Cisco products and then explains what each step does and why you should do it, line by line. The next few chapters go into some detail about the Cisco secure product family, discussing PIX Firewalls and Cisco Secure Policy Manager and what you'd use them for. Later a couple of long tutorials on configuring the Cisco Secure Scanner and the Secure Policy Manager are filled with helpful screen shots and a fair amount of explanation. But the software is complex and the book offers no demo or sample software to experiment with. If you aren't able to get your hands on a copy, you might as well resign yourself to reading this section numerous times until you get it. And even then, it still concentrates mostly on how to use the software as opposed to how it works or where it can be used properly, which may or may not be what you're looking for. Fortunately, the book ends well, giving examples of common Internet security threats and suggested solutions. The book has two major flaws, however: The first is that in the end it's still mostly regurgitated Cisco documentation and it doesn't seem to offer a whole lot of real-world experience for the reader to use. The second is that in the end, this book is little more than an overview of what Cisco can do for you, sans an overview of the competition or the areas that may have no competition. Cisco Secure Internet Security Solutions gets the job done if you want to know about Cisco security products and approaches and it does it well. It's also a not-bad introduction to security issues. But ultimately, it's neither fish nor fowl. --William Steinmetz
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