In Applied Information Security: A Hands-on Approach, authors David Basin, Patrick Schaller and Michael Schläpfer detail some of the labs exercises and texts that they used for courses they gave at ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), an engineering and science -based university in Zurich, Switzerland.

In fewer than 200 pages, the book is an intense introduction to the fundamentals of information security.  The authors wrote the book to be used as a primary reference for an undergraduate or post-graduate level course.

The book is written by college professors for a college level reader, and it is expected that the reader have a solid understanding of networks and programming.  The book is made for the reader looking to take their core technical knowledge and apply it to information security.

The main focus of the book is on network security, O/S security and web applications.  Large tomes could be written on the security aspects of each of these, so the book should not be seen as a definitive reference, rather an introductory text.

The reader is expected to complete the labs to get the full benefit of the text.  These labs can be downloaded here.

This is not a For Dummies style of book with the verbosity that comes along with it.  But for those looking for an intense but brief and concentrated introduction to some of the fundamentals of information security, to supplement other more comprehensive references, Applied Information Security: A Hands-on Approach, is a an excellent book.