Review by Tristan Lawson, CISSP, MCSE: Security, GCIH, OSCP et al

So often as security professionals we hear how bug hunters both black hat and white hat find vulnerabilities and release them to the vendor or use them for monetary gain. We wonder how they actually went about finding these vulnerabilities and what hurdles they had to jump to find them. "A Bug Hunter's Diary: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Software Security" by Tobias Klein focuses on helping different levels of security professionals understand the approaches used to uncover vulnerabilities, testing the vulnerabilities found and finally reporting on those vulnerabilities. It is short and to the point and offers nothing but valuable content with little to no fluff content.

The book was written as though Tobias was writing in a journal as he was progressing through his research of a particular application. Each chapter is a separate journal entry focused on a single application into which he dug and eventually found a vulnerability. He then determined if it was exploitable and in turn released it to either the vendor or to a vulnerability broker. This is a fascinating look into the heart of a sector of the security economy not previously exposed to a wider audience.

After the break, look for a link to a free download of Chapter 2: "Back to the 90s"