Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit Review

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Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit ReviewI am not sure why Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit (PTOST) was published. If you have no other security assessment books, you may find PTOST helpful. Otherwise, I don't believe this book offers enough value to justify purchasing it. Other books -- some published by Syngress -- cover some of the same ideas, and 5 of PTOST's chapters are published in other books anyway.
I was somewhat confused by PTOST's approach. The book features the logo of the Auditor live CD, along with a foreword by Auditor developer Max Moser. A version of Auditor is included with the book. However, PTOST isn't exactly a guide to Auditor. In fact, only on the back cover do we see a listing of the "CD contents." This list is odd since it does not distinguish between categories of tools (e.g., "Forensics") and the tools themselves (e.g., "Autopsy"). At the very least the book should have included an appendix listing the Auditor tools and a summary of their purpose.
PTOST does not feature enough original content to warrant buying the book. I think Osborne's Hacking Exposed, 5th Ed (HE5E) (or even the 4th Ed) addresses the phases of compromise in a more coherent and valuable manner. This is especially true for Ch 1 (Reconnaissance) and Ch 2 (Enumeration and Scanning); is there really anything original left to say on those subjects? I admit that coverage of certain SensePost tools was helpful, and SpiderFoot was cool.
Those looking to learn about database assessment (Ch 3) or Web hacking (Ch 4) would be better served by Syngress' own Special Ops: Host and Network Security for Microsoft, Unix, and Oracle. HE5E has a good chapter on Web hacking, and there's even a Hacking Exposed: Web Applications (HEWA) book. (A second edition of HEWA arrives this year, as does Syngress' new Web Application Security: A Guide for Developers and Penetration Testers.) However, I did like hearing about OScanner, SQLAT, and OAT in Ch 3.
Ch 5 (Wireless Penetration Testing Using Auditor), was one of my favorite chapters. It covered the material well enough, and it covered tools included with Auditor. The case studies were also helpful. Ch 6 (Network Devices) resembled Chs 1 and 2; it didn't contain anything really new. I could not understand why Ch 7 (Writing Open Source Security Tools) appeared in a book more or less about using a penetration testing live CD. The audiences for those using live CDs and those writing their own tools seem very different.
I also liked Ch 8 (Running Nessus from Auditor). Like Ch 5, it looked at the unique problems one encounters using a live CD for security work. For example, author Johnny Long offers multiple ways to update the Nessus plugins to a USB drive. This is exactly the sort of knowledge not found in other Nessus books. He also takes a look behind the scenes of the Nessus startup script on Auditor. Bravo.
I stopped reading PTOST after Ch 8. Why? Chs 9, 12, and 13 are published in Syngress' Writing Security Tools and Exploits (as Chs 9, 10, and 11). Chs 10 and 11 from PTOST are the same as Chs 3 and 4 from Syngress' Nessus, Snort, and Ethereal Power Tools. This tendency to reprint chapters from other books is worrisome.
I believe a second edition of PTOST would be more helpful if it focused strictly on tools found on a future assessment live CD, namely BackTrack. (BackTrack is a new live CD uniting the Auditor and Whax projects.) In fact, the authors might consider taking a case-based approach for the whole book. I thought the case studies in PTOST were some of the best material. For those looking for a comprehensive guide to security assessment, I recommend waiting for a second edition of Special Ops. Those who want a wide-ranging guide to security tools will like the recently published third edition of Osborne's Anti-Hacker Toolkit.Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit OverviewPenetration testing a network requires a delicate balance of art and science. A penetration tester must be creative enough to think outside of the box to determine the best attack vector into his own network, and also be expert in using the literally hundreds of tools required to execute the plan. This book provides both the art and the science. The authors of the book are expert penetration testers who have developed many of the leading pen testing tools; such as the Metasploit framework. The authors allow the reader "inside their heads" to unravel the mysteries of thins like identifying targets, enumerating hosts, application fingerprinting, cracking passwords, and attacking exposed vulnerabilities. Along the way, the authors provide an invaluable reference to the hundreds of tools included on the bootable-Linux CD for penetration testing.* Covers both the methodology of penetration testing and all of the tools used by malicious hackers and penetration testers * The book is authored by many of the tool developers themselves * This is the only book that comes packaged with the "Auditor Security Collection"; a bootable Linux CD with over 300 of the most popular open source penetration testing tools

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