* Review of Raymond Panko’s college security text
I received a copy of Raymond Panko’s new college security text a few months ago and am pleased to point readers, especially college and industry teachers, to it as a useful resource.
Panko is professor of information technology management in the College of Business Administration at the University of Hawaii and has been a star in the world of IT for many years. I have been using various editions of his fine data communications text for many years in my courses.
The text opens with an overview chapter that sets students’ expectations and explains why the subject is important. I like this approach; I begin every lecture in all my courses by speaking informally with my students about where the coming subject matter fits in the wider perspective of IT in particular and management in general. I find that they respond with greater interest when they know why something matters than when they are presented with a stream of disconnected facts or principles.
Panko offers a useful extra chapter (1a) that presents abstracts and references to recent computer crime cases. My computer crime courses also use this approach. It piques the students’ curiosity and makes the course a bit more fun when they have specific cases in mind as we discuss particular attack and defense strategies.
Without going into detail here because of the limited space in this column, I can at least list the other chapters in the text:
Access control and site security
Review of TCP/IP internetworking
Attack methods
Firewalls (with an updated chapter available online; see below)
Host security
Elements of cryptography
Cryptographic systems: SSL/TLS, VPNs, and Kerberos
Application security: electronic commerce and e-mail
Incident and disaster response
Managing the security function
The broader perspective (privacy issues and cyberwar)
The text includes detailed review questions scattered throughout the text of each chapter; in addition, Panko provides essay-type questions at the end of the chapters. He has made a set of PowerPoint slides available online for each of the chapters for security educators or trainers who use the text in their courses.
Panko has recently updated Chapter 5 on firewalls with a much larger chapter downloadable as a PDF file from his Web site.
Other files included updated homework questions, a paper on the Slammer worm, a very nice glossary, an extensive set of links to security software for Linux and Windows, and restricted files for teachers who use his textbook in their courses (answers to questions, teaching hints and a test-item file for creating quizzes and exams).
