Tom Madsen - The Art of War for Computer Security

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Welcome to this book, The Art of War for Computer Security . Books on the ancient Chinese classic text The Art of War as applied to areas like politics and business have been written before, so why now one on computer security? Is it even applicable to computer security? I, of course, think yes. Otherwise why would I write this book? The Art of War is aimed at conflict between nations, and as we have seen, it can be applied to conflict between companies and political parties as well. The key word here is conflict. Computer security is meant to protect information or information systems against compromise, from either accidents or malicious attacks. Malicious attacks against information or systems mean that we now have a conflict between the attacker and the victim organization, and this conflict can be governed, managed, and mitigated by using some of the points made in The Art of War , some 2500 years ago!

The Art of War is about, well, war! So, is this a book about this fancy new concept called cyberwar? No! I have worked for many years within the United Nations, and I have seen the consequences of war up close. War is not a concept which should be applied to anything beyond its original meaning. War on this, war on that. It dilutes the original meaning, and consequences, of war. But I am getting sidetracked; back to this book. The original book has 13 chapters, with individual points made within each of the chapters. There are many quotes from The Art of War in the present book, and these quotes are usually from points in the corresponding chapters. Now, not all of the chapters, or all the points therein, are applicable to computer security, so I have picked out the chapters and points from the original version that can be applied to computer security. So, if you have picked out this book as a guide to the full version of The Art of War , then I am sorry to say that I will disappoint you with this book. You will have to buy one of the many very good books out there covering the full version, something I highly recommend. You might even consider getting one of the versions aimed at one of the many other areas where The Art of War has been applied. These books can, and do, offer other insights into the finer points made in the original version, or even made in the version I have written here.

Who might benefit from reading this book? If you are a computer security professional trying to secure your organizations information systems against attacks, you will benefit from the points made. If you are a manager responsible for securing information systems, you will benefit from this book. If you are an attacker, hopefully a white hat kind of attacker, you will benefit from this book, especially the chapters covering the offensive areas of war. I know that this last point can be controversial, but, as defenders, we absolutely must know how an attacker could go about compromising our information systems! If we do not know how an attack might take place, we cannot defend against that attack. So, yes, there are points made in this book which are solely of benefit to an attacker.

I mentioned earlier that the original book has 13 chapters. I have chosen to largely maintain the original chapter structure. When I say mostly, it is because some of the chapters in the original cannot be applied to computer security. These chapters I have removed from this book. The chapters are Maneuver, Marches, and Terrain. I have added a chapter as well. The first chapter in the book will give you an overview of who Sun Tzu was, and some of his history, at least as much as is known, to give you some of the context in which The Art of War was written those 2500 years ago.