Pro PHP Security

I found Pro PHP Security a very informative book. I received this book around the same time that I began developing online financial software. This book lived up to the name and answered a lot of my questions. I found the chapter on encryption and hashing very interesting. I knew what each system of protection accomplished but not how. Next the authors proceeded to discuss Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and how certificates are created. It was fun to be able to create my own certificate and keys, and gain a better understanding of how the whole process works. After covering server security and connection security, the authors moved onto secure programming. The first chapter covers user input validation. This is one area that many programmers, myself included, do not devote much time. If you can sanitize the data you get from the user, you have overcome one of the largest hurdles of securing your code. After that chapter, each following chapter begins with the presentation of an exploit and how it works, followed by discussions of sites affected by these exploits, and concluding with how to prevent it. SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution and session hijacking are some of the exploits discussed. This section of the book gave me plenty to think about and more than enough to work on implementing. If anyone is a PHP programmer and deals with any kind of sensitive data, then this book is a must read. The authors attempt to provide all the best practices because one method may not work in a given situation, but they also let you know the disadvantages of each method. As Snyder and Southwell discuss in the first chapter, as developers we cannot eliminate risk but we can do our best to mitigate it.

Unless you're already very well-versed in the subject matter, ( sql injection, cross-site scripting, session hijacking, remote execution, sanitizing user data/input, ssh, encryption, ssl, dangers of shared-host scenarios, bulletproofing db installations, user verification, captchas, remote procedure calls ) this material is relatively comprehensive and valuable. Well-organized, well thought out, I won't hesitate to recommend this one.

PHP applications written without a concern for security risk cross-site scripting, SQL injection, session hijacking, and a multitude of other potential problems. This book examines how to setup a secure environment including encryption, hashing, SSL and using PHP to connect to SSL servers. The authors also examine how to install and configure OpenSSH and using it with PHP applications. Of course they also deal with the usual concerns of user authentication, permissions, restrictions, validating input, preventing SQL injection, preventing cross-site scripting, preventing remote execution (including PHP code injection and embedding), security for temporary files, and preventing session hijacking. The Pro PHP Security is written specifically for PHP programmers working in the Apache, MySQL, and PHP 5 environment and is highly recommended

This book is great because it's thorough and on each topic it gives lots of links to additional resources. It's easy to read and it's organized well so you can find what you're looking for. One of the main things I appreciate about this book is that it gives just the right amount of information. It focuses on practical usage of security techniques but I also like to know the high-level picture of how and why things got to be the way they are. This book tells me exactly what I want to know. A good example is the the section on hashing and encryption. It gives some simplified examples of how the algorithms work and talks about where they came from, which ones are better and why, and how to use them. But it doesn't dive too deeply into encryption theory which would only be interesting to someone wanting to code an encryption routine. Some of the interesting things I learned from this book are: 1) I learned about the various hashing and encryption algorithms. Which ones are good and just how good are they. Before reading this book I couldn't have told you which is better between md5 and sha1. 2) I learned all about protecting against cross-site scripting and sql injection. I thought I had already taken enough precautions on my latest website, MarsBookmark.com, but this section pointed out some attacks I wasn't aware of. It also had links to sites with sample hack attacks you can run against your own website to see if it's vulnerable. 3) I learned how to do captcha screening to make sure people registering for my site are real humans and not robots (I haven't actually implemented this yet but I will soon). The book also pointed out something I never thought of - a hacker with a popular site can proxy registrations from your site to real people trying to register on his site and defeat your captcha by tricking people who think they are answering a captcha for his site. As usual, the author provides lots of links to other sites for more resources on captcha. I've never before focused on security as much as I should have. Probably because all the information was not readily available in a single easy-to-digest book until this one. I'm really glad I found this book.

One of the great attractions of PHP is that it's easy to learn, and you can use it to build interactive websites in next to no time. Just like learning to drive a car, though, early success can lead to over-confidence. This book is a timely reminder of the pitfalls that lie in wait not only for the unwary, but also for the more experienced PHP programmer. In keeping with the title, "Pro PHP Security", the authors address many issues that beginners may not regard as being on their immediate horizon. While some issues are advanced, it's a book that should be on the reading list of every PHP user. In addition to practical examples that deal with specific vulnerabilities, there's a clear exposition of the need to understand good application design. Chapter 19 ("Using Roles to Authorize Actions") is an object lesson in how a seemingly straightforward project can rapidly overwhelm you with complexity, and provides good advice on how to avoid this sort of problem. I suspect that most readers will gravitate towards Part 3, which concentrates on practical solutions for specific security loopholes, such as validating user input, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and preventing remote execution. Invaluable though these chapters are, the real value lies in making the reader aware of all aspects of security. Preventing accidental deletion of data, even by trusted members of a team, is just as much a security risk as the script kiddie trying to corrupt your data. This book takes a welcome, rounded viewpoint of security issues from a variety of angles. While not scare-mongering, it's a salutary wake-up call.