Rants About Software

by Greg Hoglund, James ButlerThere are a lot of security books out there that discuss exploits. They talk about different types of attacks and how to protect yourself from them. While this is all valuable information, Rootkits has taken the security discussion one step further by detailing what can happen after security has already been compromised.

In this book, authors Greg Hoglund and James Butler begin with an overview of rootkits and how they are designed, then quickly shift to how rootkits are programmed (with examples written in C). The code examples begin with writing simple Windows device drivers, but by the end of the book, they'll cover more advanced topics such as modifying the kernel, manipulating hardware, and even accessing the BIOS.

It seems like most security books are written with network and database administrators in mind. Rootkits, however, is for the programmers. The code examples alone are well worth the price of the book. Even if you're not really interested in security issues, this is still a great book for learning the ins and outs of accessing hardware devices programmatically.