The book is designed to be accessible to motivated IT professionals who want to learn more about the specific attacks covered. In particular, every effort has been made to keep the chapters independent, so if someone is interested in has function cryptanalysis or RSA timing attacks, they do not necessarily need to study all of the previous material in the text. This would be particularly valuable to working professionals who might want to use the book as a way to quickly gain some depth on one specific topic.

Three topics covered in the book provide a clear path to understanding cryptanalysis: Historical WWII ciphers are covered as an important introduction to cryptography. These are interesting historical sidelights that are not so technical. Secondly, coverage includes the recent attack on the hash function MD5 provides the reader with a deep understanding of a complex topic, and saving the reader extensive hours of research. The MD5 is of significant interest to the security professional and the attack is virtually not understandable from available literature.  Third, the book contains a readable and thorough introduction to RSA timing attacks, which is another very “hot” topic in the security community.