Focused on Corporate Information Systems Security Instead of Computer Science

Many textbooks on IT security focus on what computer scientists need to know to develop new security products. However, information systems graduates will not go out and invent new encryption algorithms or firewall filtering processes. IS graduates will have to go out and purchase the right equipment, install it, configure it, and keep it working.

More positively, our graduates have to know how to create security plans and architectures that will reflect their specific companies’ needs and that leave their companies without weak links in their security. They also have to know how to manage security on a daily basis and when security breaches occur. Although computer science security information would be nice to know, it’s not enough for corporate IS security professionals.
Comprehensive Coverage

Another problem with a lot of security books is that they tend to focus on one security area, such as management, firewalls, or encryption—or on only a few areas. In an introductory course, students need a comprehensive understanding of security issue. This book attempts to give them this broad understanding.
Up-to-Date Market-Focused Coverage

As discussed below, some security certifications, such as CompTIA’s Security+, pride themselves in being vendor neutral. Although this has some theoretical benefits, it is pretty useless in practice. In corporations today, over 90% of all clients are Windows computers. Any security course that fails to reflect that reality is pretty unrealistic. In all areas, this book attempts to focus on the state of the market in technology today.

In addition, this book focuses on today’s and tomorrow’s issues—not on things that used to be important but are not today. There is an enormous amount of material to cover; so covering irrelevant issues is an expensive luxury that we cannot afford.
Strong Teacher Support, Including Full PowerPoint Lectures

Security is a tough subject to teach. Most teachers will not have extremely strong backgrounds in security. To help you teach the course, there are PowerPoint presentations for each chapter. Not just “a few selected figures”—full lectures you can use in class. Check them out at the book’s website, pankosecurity.com.

You can have your students print the presentations out and follow them in class. This will considerably reduce note-taking burdens on students. You are welcome to mirroring the presentations on your computer’s servers for easier student access.

The website will provide other support for you and for your students in the forms of new information, errata lists, links to open-source and shareware security software that you can demonstrate in class or have your students use, and so forth.

Download: http://tinyurl.com/mrpnd

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