Others say...

"Very Amatuer"
What a waste of time it was reading this book. If you are not very familiar with FW/IPS or VPN then this may be helpful, but if you have been working with this technology and Cisco's products that address these technologies (ASA, PIX, IPS, VPN3k) then please don't refer to this joke. Go online to cisco.com and do the research. Sometimes it felt as if whitepapers were copied and pasted.

Very dissapointed.

"Excellent Book on Cisco ASA."
I bought this book 2 weeks back for an ASA project that my company is going to deploy. I am really amused to see that each chapter starts off with an in-depth architectural overview of the features to be discussed. It then provides full step-by-step configuration examples with lots of deployment scenarios. It even covers many troubleshooting and monitoring examples that helped me a lot when I started deploying it in my lab network
This book is a must have if you are to use Cisco ASA in your network.
I strongly recommend this Book and give 5 stars on the scale of 5.

"A good book for a good design"
I was surprised to see that Cisco was able to publish a book about ASA configuration/implementation. The authors had done a good job in explaining how the commands work and what kind of configurations can be used to implement IPS/VPN solutions.

The book really helps to understand what kind of implmentation can be done by the ASA.

If you were to use ASA for your company, I would suggest to buy this book and go through the information provided. Its an excellent guide and well written by the authors.

"Great book on the Cisco ASA"
Cisco ASA : All-in-One Firewall, IPS, and VPN Adaptive Security Appliance (Paperback)
by Omar Santos, Jazib Frahim
ISBN: 1587052091
Lately there is a fashion to say that now the network layer has been secured and so application security rules and that is what we need to worry about. Nothing can be further from the truth, imagine if a VPN implementation is not working as desired is it possible to still have a secure application layer, I think not. That is why they are called layers as they work in perfect harmony with each other.
The book on Cisco ASA provides a very good understanding of the Adaptive behaviour of the next generation of cisco products which do the work of detection, prevention and combatting network threats. The book explains in a very lucid way to implement and configure a complex device which handles the work of a virus scanner, content filter, firewall and VPN.
Through various confguration examples and designs the book explains the complex task of troubleshooting and that itself is worth the price of the book. The tips on how to use the various debug commands to fine tune the device are invaluable and a must for any one attempting to tame this beast.
The coauthor Jazib Frahim, CCIE is a senior network security engineer in the Worldwide Security Services Practice of Advanced Services for Network Security at Cisco.
The coauthor Omar Santos is a senior network security engineer in the Worldwide Security Services Practice of Advanced Services for Network Security at Cisco.
I give this book 5 stars on a scale of 5, 5 being the highest. I strongly recommend this book.
Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP



"Securing a Network the Cisco Way"
Computer security would be really easy IF. If the computer were in a room by itself, if it wasn't connected to a communications line, and if no one ever brought in a floppy disk or other media. Unfortunately that's not the real world.

In the real world, we set up web servers because we want the outside world to come to them and get information, send us credit card information and more. Now, all of a sudden you have a different set of problems, how to let in all the people you want, and make it easy for them to do what they need, but keep out the bad guys who have other motives.

The Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance or ASA is a single integrated box that provides about as close to perfect security as can be had in today's world. Being 'Adaptive' means that the system can change to provide security against new forms of attack. It also means that the system is not the simplest thing in the world to set up, nor can it simply be installed and then ignored forever.

This book begins with a general introduction to Network Security and what the bad guys are doing. It then discusses the various major functions of the ASA: Firewall, Intrusion Prevention System, and finally securing your Virtual Private Network.

Both of the authors are current Cisco employees with a great deal of experience in security.