Acknowledgments

A book isn’t simply written by one person; so many people had key roles in the production of this study guide, so I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank them. First and foremost, I would like to thank the folks at McGraw Hill, Wendy Rinaldi, Caitlin Cromley-Linn, and Janet Walden. All three worked hard to keep me on track and made sure that this book met the highest standards of quality. They are awesome people to work with, and I’m grateful once again to work with them!

I would also like to sincerely thank Nitesh Sharma, Senior Project Manager, KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd, who worked on the post-production for the book, and Bill McManus, who did the copyediting work for the book. They are also great folks to work with. Nitesh was so patient and professional with me at various times when I did not exactly meet a deadline and I’m so grateful for that. I’ve worked with Bill a few times on different book projects, and I must admit I’m always in awe of him (and a bit intimidated by him, but really glad in the end to have him help on my projects), since he is an awesome copyeditor who catches every single one of the plentiful mistakes I make during the writing process. I have also gained a significant respect for Bill’s knowledge of cybersecurity, as he’s always been able to key in on small nuances of wonky explanations that even I didn’t catch and suggest better ways to write them. He’s the perfect person to make sure this book flows well, is understandable to a reader, and is a higher-quality resource. Thank you, Bill!

There are many other people on the production side who contributed significantly to the publication of this book, including Rachel Fogelberg, Ted Laux, Thomas Somers, and Jeff Weeks, as well as others. My sincere thanks to them all for their hard work.

I also want to thank my family for their patience and understanding as I took time away from them to write this book. I owe them a great deal of time I can never pay back, and I am very grateful for their love and support.

And last, but certainly not least, I want to thank the technical editor, Nichole O’Brien. I’ve worked with Nichole on tons of real-world cybersecurity projects off and on for at least ten years now. I’ve lost count of how many proposals, risk assessment reports, customer meetings, and cyber-related problems she has suffered through with me, yet she didn’t hesitate to jump in and become the technical editor for this book. Nichole is absolutely one of the smartest businesspeople I know in cybersecurity, as well as simply a really good person, and I have an infinite amount of professional and personal respect for her. This book is so much better for having her there to correct my mistakes, ask critical questions, make me do more research, and add a different and unique perspective to the process. Thanks, Nichole!

—Bobby Rogers