Book details of 'Viruses Revealed'

Title	Viruses Revealed
Author(s)	C. David Harley, Robert Slade, David Harley, Urs E. Gattiker, Eugene H. Spafford
ISBN	0072130903
Language	English
Published	September 2001
Publisher	McGraw-Hill Osborne Media

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Viruses Revealed':

Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
Hardly a week goes by without news of some malicious program or other playing hob with large numbers of computers somewhere on the Internet. Viruses Revealed shows where computer viruses come from, how they spread, and how you can protect the computers you're responsible for. It recognizes that viruses are inherent in the modern computing environment (which makes it easy to share data among machines) and that there's no absolutely certain way to maintain any degree of usefulness in a computer while eliminating all risk of viral infection. From there, the three authors proceed to make their readers informed participants in a dangerous computing world. They do this by defining terms (like dropper, a program that isn't a virus itself but which serves to install one), explaining concepts (like the difficulties antivirus programs face in detecting Trojan programs), and documenting historical events (infamous viruses of the past--Love Bug, Kournikova, and so on--and why they worked). To their great credit, the authors go to great lengths to be authoritative. They document pretty much everything they say with references and rarely assume that the reader knows what any but the most basic terms mean. Furthermore, they're modest and don't claim that what they say will save your machines from viral attack. Rather, they say that appropriate defenses will reduce your risk of infection, and solid documentation, backup, and recovery mechanisms will help you halt successful attacks early and recover from them promptly. The prose here is well written and often funny--Viruses Revealed is a big winner. --David Wall Topics covered: Computer viruses--what they are, where they come from, how they work, and how to deal with them. A combination of case studies and explanatory prose shows how to minimize your virus risk, regardless of what kinds of computers you run.
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
The International Institute for Fashion and Other Really Nasty Things today announced the winner of the 2001 Award for the World's Ugliest Book Cover. "Normally, we wouldn't announce a winner until next spring some time," said Frederick Krueger, the Institute's president, "but with the release of `Viruses Revealed,' there really isn't room for any competition." Spokespeople for Osborne/McGraw-Hill would not speak for attribution, but one did admit that they were pleased with the award. "We said we were going for `bold' and `eye-catching,' but our real target was to produce that sick-to-your-stomach flu feeling, to give people a real virus queasiness. It's nice to know we succeeded." Security specialists were equally quick to comment on the contents of the work. "What a thick book!" said David Chess. "Da- I mean, darn it, where are the taxonomies?" said Winn Schwartau, author of "Internet and Computer Ethics for Kids." He also promised to give us his *real* reaction "as soon as I get rid of the best of these rugrats." "I think more time should go by between Slade's books." - Larry Bridwell "How come my work didn't get mentioned?" - sarah gordon "read it" - A. Padgett Peterson "Should be `reviled'." - PGN "A mythic work! No, sorry, that should be `mythical'." - Jeff Crume "Why are these guys misusing my name?" - Gene Spafford "Makes a great doorstop." - Tom Sheldon "Oooh, a foreword from spaf!" - David Chess (no relation) "Fills an unneeded gap." - Fred Cohen Misinformation about semi-recent viruses can be found at http://www.osborne.com/virus_alert/, while marketing hype is available at http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/vrupdate.htm and http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/vrupdate.htm. Some real links can be found at http://www.sherpasoft.org.uk/viruses-revealed/. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2001
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Book description:

Defend your system against the real threat of computer viruses with help from this comprehensive resource. Up-do-date and informative, this book presents a full-scale analysis on computer virus protection. Through use of case studies depicting actual virus infestations, this guide provides both the technical knowledge and practical solutions necessary to guard against the increasing threat of virus attacks.