With cyber-terrorism and corporate espionage threatening the fiber of our world, the need for trained network security professionals continues to grow. This book describes the tools and penetration testing methodologies used by ethical hackers to better understand how to protect computer networks.
Given the content of the text, I would expect this to be an introductory book, not a "hands-on" guide. Over half of the so-called hands-on activities are simply reading and summarizing articles. There are better free resources online than this book that costs nearly $100.
Out of date and pretty much useless. You would learn more network security by studying network protocols and generic 'best practices'. The only redeeming fact about the book is that it mentions, albeit briefly, how to port scan and enumerate hosts.