Wireless Book Review

BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing is a book that guides beginners on penetration testing. The book is essential for beginners with little knowledge since it guides them to a point where they can set up a lab. BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing provides important information on becoming a wireless hacker. The book starts off with simple practical sessions which gradually become complex. Besides, it helps learners to acquire basic knowledge. The basic concepts help them to develop lab environments for wireless experiments. The labs are eventually used to enhance wireless security. The book also guides learners on how to conduct bleeding-edge scenarios. For an individual to understand how to enhance security, he or she must know how the danger comes about and how it is created. Wireless security is not an exception. First, the book explains how wireless hacking goes on and how it is created. Second, it explains how one can use the tools described to curb it. Both wireless hacking and wireless security use similar labs and tools and this is also clearly explained in the book. Therefore, the book is helpful for beginners in wireless hacking as it gives a lot of basic information on Linux. The thing that makes this book an exception is that most of the other books of such type explain complex information at the very beginning, thus losing readers (Vivek, 2011). On the contrary, BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing explains the simple concepts first to ensure that readers are conversant with the concepts. Then it develops complex ideas from the simple ones, which makes it easy for learners to follow. The author of this book is an expert in the subject; thus, the content of the book is reliable. Since the author has vast knowledge on the topic of discussion, it can be concluded that the book is written from experience. The approach that the author uses in discussing the subject shows that there is a need for learners to begin from simple concepts in order to relate them to the complex ones that will be learned further. The book has descriptive screenshots that enable readers to follow easily. The book provides not only theory but also gives a lot of examples. The screenshots make it easy for readers to understand what the author is explaining in theory.

Even though this book may seem too good for beginners, it is, actually, not that effective for people with basic knowledge on the subject. To begin with, the book is quite small, and since most of its content is devoted to the explanation of simple concepts, there are fewer pages for complex concepts. Unfortunately, all this makes the book ineffective in giving detailed information on the real problem. The major part of the book is devoted to building a foundation on the issue; on the contrary, a little part of it expounds the real problem and solutions. It should be noticed that there are people who want to extend their knowledge on the issues; however, this book does not serve this purpose since it focuses more on simple concepts. The book also focuses more on simple minor attacks on wireless networks and gives little focus on complex and advanced attacks (Vivek, 2011). There is only one chapter on advanced wireless network attacks, while several chapters describe simple and average attacks. Actually, this makes the book insufficient in handling modern network threats. Network attacks are advancing; therefore, the book should have been more focused on advanced attacks rather than simple ones. Even if the book implies that similar steps and measures are applied for both minor and major attacks, readers should learn the exact way to deal with complex attacks. Although the author is a researcher and professional in the field, his approach to explaining the issue in this book discredits him.

In conclusion, BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing is excellent for beginners in penetration testing. On the other hand, it lacks more complex details of the topic. Although the book is a good source of basic information, it would not satisfy the needs of advanced learners.