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---
title: 'Technical book review: Cybersecurity for Small Networks'
categories:
- blog
abstract: A very short review of a technical book for absolute newcomers.
date: 2023-12-14T10:54:48+02:00
draft: false
---
{{<img-pull-right "cybersec-for-small-net.webp">}}
Like every good neckbeard, I have become much more interested in networking in last few years.
I have no interest in becoming a network guy, but cybersecurity is on the radar[^llm].
Of course, there is a huge overlap of those two.
[^llm]: It seems safe from LLM dread we see in software engineering.
Unfortunately, [*Cybersecurity for Small Networks*](https://nostarch.com/cybersecurity-small-networks) doesn't fill my knowledge gap.
It's a good book, but it assumes close to zero knowledge.
And this is a cool realization: you assume you know nothing and then boom.
Suddenly you become a know-it-all.
Earned?
Nope.
But cool nevertheless.
Back to the book: it covers creating and securing networks.
It gives an overview of doing things across most popular OSes and popular consumer-grade solutions (like pfsense).
It is a good **introduction**, but if you already know all the words in [table of contents](https://nostarch.com/download/CyberSecuritySmallNetworks_TOC.pdf), it won't teach you much.
Know what a VLAN is?
Half of the chapter is boring.
Don't use the exact product the author is describing?
There goes the rest.
There was a moment when I would benefit from reading this book and it was a few years ago.
If you are a bit technical and want to secure your network - go ahead.
It will help you.
But if you want to expand existing knowledge, I'd look somewhere else.
Personally, I skimmed most of the book.
The last chapter, Monitoring, had a lot of good info as I use an Ubiqity network gear and it gives a lot of it out of the box.
I am planning to move to open source alternative (most likely, my next router will run raw OpenBSD), and now I have something to think about.
But it's not USD 30-40 worth.
Read as PDF on Onyx Boox Note Air 2.
book bought as part of a [Hacking Humble Bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/books/hacking-2023-no-starch-books)
Next up: [Hacking APIs](https://nostarch.com/hacking-apis)
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