A Guide to Kernel Exploitation: Attacking the Core

I bought this book in hopes of finding an informative and thought provoking look at kernel exploitation - I was not disappointed. Aside from a few minor typos, I found this book to be one of the most well written books on exploitation that I have read. I have recommended it to some fellow students and a professor (I am a graduate student in computer science). I highly recommend this book for anybody that is interested in kernel exploitation. In my opinion, this book is currently the best source of information on exploiting the kernel since Phrack #64 file 6.

This book gives very clear guidance to show how to develop exploitation attacking OS kernel. I really love it. But the website hosting source code of this book is down. I don't know where to down load the source code. If there is another source to download the source code that would be awesome.

This was the first kernel related book I've read and it was very approachable an easy to understand.Each section breaks the necessary information down into understandable pieces. The background info provided is very useful for someone with no kernel background. However the amount of general kernel information was 50% of the book. For people who have some kernel background this book would most likely bore them to death.

This book is the best book I've ever read. No, but seriously, its like the keys to the kingdom. The authors do a great job of giving you a foundation in the starting chapters (however, it is very helpful if you have a coding background and have some knowledge of how and kernel/processor works, generally). I'm about half way through the book and I have learned so much about exploitation - this book is priceless.

is nice but is like just with C and leave a side more languages

Gift that was appreciated and still being reviewed.

A Guide to Kernel Exploitation: Attacking the Core  is a great technically focused treatment of the topic. It is not written for the absolute beginner. But the level of detail is not overly forbidding for those with some basic knowledge of programming and operating systems architecture. The best audience for this type of book will likely be the systems security professional who has looked at the Kernel as black box up until this point in time. Similarly, it may also be of interest to developers who must do kernel programming but are not focused on security.The book covers a lot of popular kernels, including Solaris, Windows (32 & 64 bit) and Mac OS X. There is also some Linux relevant material here, and the BSD component of XNU is contrasted against FreeBSD. While there will never be a way to cover every kernel in this kind of book, the authors do a great job of using good examples from these major kernels to illustrate key concepts.One of the areas where this text doesn't delve into as much is virtualized environments. As virtual computing grows in importance, new attack vectors are bound to flourish in this arena. Perhaps a future text will address that.Similarly, the proliferation of Android and IOS mobile operating systems provides all new attack surfaces that people will want to learn about. This book is still useful, in that the general concepts are still applicable. But while the examples are very detailed and code specific, they will not be explicitly relevant for those systems.If there is one warning I can give about this book, it is that there is a lot of reading between the lines here. I haven't worked through all the examples quite yet. But don't expect everything to be spelled out for you. This text is designed to be used at your desk as you are working these concepts out. I think those who are looking to consume this material by reading alone will not get a full appreciation for the content.CONCLUSIONThis text has greatly improved my understanding of kernel security from both theoretical and practical perspectives. I appreciate the cross platform focus and the included code level examples. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this topic for either personal or professional reasons.Enjoy.

The text is a deeply detailed and technical explanation of how to break into the kernel of a contemporary computer, be it running linux, Unix or Microsoft Windows. In terms of hardware, many examples are taken from the x86_64. This is a CPU that runs 64 bits wide using an Intel or Intel-compatible x86 architecture. The authors' choice reflects the marketplace reality that this is now the most common choice for most new machines.Many code snippets are in C since, when source code for a kernel is available, it is usually in C. While C++, Java and other higher level languages are mentioned, for kernel exploitation, you need to practise your C skills. The choice of C has practical effects. Notably when the text mentions string overflow methods that attack well known weak C functions like strcpy() that do not check strongly for the end of a string. In turn, this somewhat derives from C designating the end of a string by a symbol [\0] embedded at the [supposed] end of that string. You get to appreciate that the residue of such legacy ideas offers potential attack vectors for exploitation.Chapter 4 is an extensive discussion of the various Unix systems and common weaknesses. While most if not all have been patched, the ideas therein are useful as future variants of those operating systems might well have recurrent holes. The Mac OS X is a variant of Unix, but the authors deemed it important enough for its own chapter. After which, another chapter focuses on Microsoft Windows.One nice aspect of the book is that it does not favour any operating system as particularly less vulnerable than others to attack. It does not take sides. This extends to whether the source code of an OS might be public, as with linux, or held closed, like Windows. Each has advantages and disadvantages.Instead, you should appreciate from the entire book that any operating system can have flaws.

Coming from a background in IT security and with a reasonable understanding of system architectures I found this book to be an absolutely refreshing change from the standard regurgitated offerings that are dominating the field due to nothing better being available.This book gives you a solid understanding of a wide range of kernel (and application) level security flaws to a level where you would feel comfortable discussing this not with your average IT security consultant (who would be lost soon after stack overflow) but with serious and dedicated professionals working at the bleeding edge of OS security.I cannot recommend this book highly enough. However it does assume a background of being able to follow C code (or at least understand the algorithmic flow), elementary Data structures (pointers, lists) and fundamentals of OS design (try Operating Systems by Deitel for a good core intro). Some assembly might help as well. But don't let that put you off... it's not absolutely necessary.It genuinely is one of those books where you think 'WOW.. I wish I wrote that!'.Nothing in the field comes closer to delivering what this book does.As you may have guessed. Highly recommended.

Das Buch ist zwar schon etwas älter, aber um die Grundlagen zu lernen sehr gut. Es ist sehr ausführlich und sehr gut geschrieben. Leider ist das Englisch teilweise schwer zu verstehen (ich bin nicht der beste) weswegen man Sachen manchmal öfter lesen muss. Aber dafür gibt es ja die deutsche Version. Alles in allem ein sehr gutes umfangreiches Buch um in das Thema einzusteigen.