Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards

The Practical, Comprehensive Guide to Applying Cybersecurity Best Practices and Standards in Real Environments

In Effective Cybersecurity, William Stallings introduces the technology, operational procedures, and management practices needed for successful cybersecurity. Stallings makes extensive use of standards and best practices documents that are often used to guide or mandate cybersecurity implementation. Going beyond these, he offers in-depth tutorials on the “how” of implementation, integrated into a unified framework and realistic plan of action.

Each chapter contains a clear technical overview, as well as a detailed discussion of action items and appropriate policies. Stallings offers many pedagogical features designed to help readers master the material: clear learning objectives, keyword lists, review questions, and QR codes linking to relevant standards documents and web resources.

Effective Cybersecurity aligns with the comprehensive Information Security Forum document “The Standard of Good Practice for Information Security,” extending ISF’s work with extensive insights from ISO, NIST, COBIT, other official standards and guidelines, and modern professional, academic, and industry literature.

• Understand the cybersecurity discipline and the role of standards and best practices
• Define security governance, assess risks, and manage strategy and tactics
• Safeguard information and privacy, and ensure GDPR compliance
• Harden systems across the system development life cycle (SDLC)
• Protect servers, virtualized systems, and storage
• Secure networks and electronic communications, from email to VoIP
• Apply the most appropriate methods for user authentication
• Mitigate security risks in supply chains and cloud environments

This knowledge is indispensable to every cybersecurity professional. Stallings presents it systematically and coherently, making it practical and actionable.