Re:How does it stack up against... (Score 2, Insightful)

I don't think any one book is a good way to have an overall picture of security. Just like you need defense in depth, you need investigation/learning in depth.

This second edition super does a job of updating the original, and it's about time. For unix security people I'd suggest you also read Hacking Linux Exposed because it has very in depth coverage of everything from a Linux standpoint. (Unix really, but they focus on Linux for their answers about how you fix things. Pathnames may differ for other Unix systems, like BSD.)

O'Reilly's BIF is good, but I'd suggest a Linux-specific firewall book too, like Linux Firewalls, Second Edition.

For those people not familiar with Hacker's Challenge (1st and 2nd editions) it's a book chock full of real-world (presumably sanitized) cracking examples where they tell you what happened, copies of of log data, and you try to figure out what happened. Very good book.

I'd also like to note that Hacker's Challenge (and Hacking Linux Exposed, for that matter) are not Foundstone books. Hacker's Challenge's lead author is Mike Schiffman, director of security at @stake, which is definately not Foundstone. Foundstone is doing poorly, going so far as to patent port scanning.