What would you do if a hacker attacked your computer network? Most people wouldn't have a clue.

Incident Response offers a strategic guide to handling system and network security breaches.

The increasing complexity and diversity of systems, applications and networks has made them more difficult to defend.

More companies than ever before are experiencing losses due to security breaches.

Security professionals and network managers need to take a new approach to protecting digital assets.

This book explains how to use monitoring and detection measures to reduce the magnitude of incidents and develop an effective incident response strategy.

It provides specific security plans from internationally recognised experts and is illustrated with case studies showing real applications.

Readers can learn how to identify the types of incident that occur and the complications experienced dealing with them.

The book is not a particularly difficult read although the subject matter is definitely an acquired taste.

If you have the potential to suffer data losses, it should be an obligatory read but I suspect even security enthusiasts will balk at the thought of in-depth study.

The section on computer forensics shows how knowledge of forensic procedures could help an organisation to retain the integrity of digital evidence.

The book, somewhat controversially, explains computer forensics is almost invariably extremely time-consuming and rarely produces anything particularly substantial in the way of hard evidence.

I am not sure I agree with that summary, other than to say that computer forensics is still in its infancy.

As digital attacks increase, forensic investigators will need to expand their range of detection tools considerably to cope with criminal inventiveness.

Incident Response will never make it to the best seller lists but could be an invaluable tool for the computer professional.

It offers plenty of useful information in a way that is relatively easy to digest.

Price: £30.99.

Contact: 0800 0921554.

Feel good factor: 7 out of 10.