On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Jeremy <[email protected]> wrote: > I want to learn networking & network security. I want to understand how > people attack systems so that I can mitigate these attacks as much as > possible.
It sounds like you're more in need of a general overview so you know where to go. You could use a specific firewall tool, but you don't necessarily know enough to judge one over the other. Two good people to start with would be Bruce Schneier and Richard Bejtlich: https://www.schneier.com/ http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/ The both have separate books to read, and write prolifically online. Read through what they talk about, and see where it takes you. Past that, if you get to a scenario like "I need to protect a network site with a fiber link, several outward facing webservers, and a few internal-only applications, with 50 users", that gives you a target to work towards. Also workable is "I want to set up a software router/firewall for my home instead of using a Linksys router or similar." Think about that part, of what goal you want to set.
