We take a look at three security titles sure to be mainstays on your bookshelf. This month, we decode secure communications:

Hiding in Plain Sight: Steganography and the Art of Covert Communication
By Eric Cole
Wiley Publishing, 333 pages, $35

Cole explores the basics of hiding messages within seemingly ho-hum files, a technique used throughout history as a means of secretly communicating. He includes fictionalized stories of his experiences as a CIA researcher, insight on steganography tools and how to apply them to corporate communications.

User's Guide to Cryptography and Standards
By Alex W. Dent & Chris J. Mitchell
Artech House, 382 pages, $89

The authors talk crypto from the user's point of view, with practical comparisons of cryptography standards and how they're implemented. They also help you choose the standards best suited to your business, while providing the nuts and bolts on encryption, hash-functions, digital signatures, PKI and more.

Practical Cryptography
By Niels Ferguson & Bruce Schneier
Wiley Publishing, 410 pages, $50

The follow-up to Schneier's Applied Cryptography, this book takes the algorithm insight and implementation advice from the first tome and teaches the reader how to make it part of an overall security system. The authors drill down on different algorithms, and advise on how to apply them to system design and make systems more secure.

Visit SearchSecurity.com's Information Security Bookshelf for chapter downloads from these books and more.