Start of my InfoSec article journal and book list

Not really blog worthy, but I decided to start a journal of interesting information security articles or books that I’ve found to be particularly valuable. Not all of them are publicly available, but where I can, I’ll add some links. Really this is just a list of my dog-eared books in no particular order. (-:

Articles

Security Controls That Work; Information Systems Control Journal; Volume 4, 2007

Information Security Standards Foucs on the Existence of Process, Not Its Content; Communications of the ACM; August 2006, Volume 49, Number 8

FrankenSOA; Network Computing; 06/25/07; Page 41

Books

Chris McNab, Network Security Assessment, Sebastapol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2004 – Describes a technical assessment methodology which can be used to understand the “threats, vulnerabilities, and exposures modern public networks face.”

Andrew Jaquith, Security Metrics: Replacing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2007 – Information security has been largely justified by fear over the last many years. This book is the single best book I have seen yet which provides a pragmatic guide to using effective metrics in infosec programs and communication with stakeholders. I think that organizations which adopt this type of approach will fare well when infosec spending starts to level off or dry up.

Stephen Northcut, Lenny Zeltser, Scott Winters, Karen Kent & Ronald Ritchey, Inside Network Perimeter Security, Indianapolis, Indiana: Sams Publishing, 2005 – excellent multi-layer book which describes appropriate techniques to layer differing strategies together to provide stronger perimeter defense
.  “Defense in depth is a primary focus of this book, and the concept is quite
simple: Make it harder to attack at chokepoint after chokepoint.”