Top 10 Penetration Testing Books for Beginners.and more

YOU ARE READING: Top 10 Penetration Testing Books for Beginners.and more AT PhebinhvanhocEN

In a recent post, I asked for book recommendations for certification exams aligned with offensive security and/or penetration testing and received a surprising and somewhat overwhelming response. Thank you! It turns out that there are many more books available than I imagined and now I have reading material for the rest of the year!

For those interested, here’s my “Top 10 Books for Beginners” sampler. This is my personal opinion after reviewing each of these books for content, quality, and timeliness. this is not an inclusive list of all available books on this topic. I have read many books, but I certainly have not read all the books out there. I apologize if I missed one of your favorites.

You are reading: Best penetration testing books

Thank you to all the amazing authors of these books and those who helped build this list.

Enjoy your journey into offensive security and penetration testing.

1. break into information security (gill)

how to start a career in information security with an emphasis on offensive security
fundamental technologies and core information to build
the perfect book to start with</li
get it via donation: https://leanpub.com/ltr101-breaking-into-infosec

2. the pentester plane (wylie and crawley)

baseline pentesting, basic skills in operating systems, networks, and security
education and training recommendations, including certificates and degrees
experience tips, including labs, ctfs, and bug bounties

3. learn ethical hacking from scratch (sabih)

basic computer system knowledge and introduction to vulnerability
basic exploitation and security assessments
combine this with the udemy course

4. linux basics for hackers (occupytheweb)

reads like a tutorial with practical tips and applications
basics of networking and listening
basic proxy, vpn, tor and encryption details
Introduction bash scripts and other simple tools

5. penetration testing: practical introduction to hacking (weidman)

basic skills and techniques focused on practice
basic concepts on password cracking, wireless applications, web, social engineering and antivirus bypass
business and content control post-exploit
even includes notes on writing exploits and mobile hacking

6. gray hat hacking: the ethical hacker’s handbook (harper et al)

weapons, skills, and tactics, including case studies, labs, and actual commandos
covers a wide range of information, including network, web, mobile, malware, law, and more
includes a business view of ethical piracy

7. piracy: the art of exploitation (erickson)

intermediate information
heavy c programming
solid buffer overflow details
hands-on content focused on exploit development

8. network security assessment (mcnab)

very structured approach to network assessments
focuses on ports, protocols and associated services
includes information on web servers and databases
frameworks too, including rails, django, ms asp.net and php

9. the web application hacker’s handbook (stuttard and pinto)

focuses on web application testing and attacks
information on discovering, exploiting, and preventing security flaws in web applications
get the interactive version at portswigger: https:// portswigger.net/web-security/web-application-hackers-handbook

10. attacking network protocols: capture, analysis & exploitation (forshaw)

capture, manipulate, and retransmit network packets with wireshark
dissect traffic and reverse engineer code by focusing on the inner workings of network protocols
content intermediate on memory corruption, authentication bypass and dos attacks

bonus. These aren’t exactly the kinds of books you read cover to cover, but they are essential references to have by your side as you type:

hacker methodology manual (bobeck)
hash crack: password cracking manual (picolet)
red team field manual (clark)
the operator’s manual (picolet)

do you want more? here are the books that didn’t make my top 10 list but are still quality reading material worth adding to your library:

finalists:

basic security testing with kali linux (dieterle)
blue team field manual (white & clark)
penetration testing and ethical hacking guide (baloch)
hacking for dummies (beaver)
penetration testing: a survival guide (halton et al)
professional penetration testing: creating and Learning in a Hacking Lab (Wilhelm)
The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing: Easy (Engebretson)
The Hacker Playbook Series, Books 1- 3 (kim)
red team development and operations: a practical guide (vest and tubberville)

applications and web:

a bug hunter’s diary (klein)
exploitation software: how to crack the code (hoglund and mcgraw)
practical web penetration testing with metasploit (singh and sharma)
security bug hunting (gallagher, landauer and jeffries)
professional web application penetration testing: programmer to programmer (andreu)
read world bug hunting: a field guide to web hacking (yaworski)
seven deadliest web application attacks (shema)
injection attacks sql and defense (clarke et al)
the art of software security assessment (dowd, mcdonald and schuh)
the tangled web: a guide to securing web applications modern (zalewski)
web penetration testing with kali linux (nájera-gutiérrez and ansari)

linux:

linux hack exposed (isecom)
kali linux revealed: dominance of penetration testing distribution (hertzog and o’gorman)
command line linux and shell scripting bible (blum and bresnahan)
linux shell scripting cookbook (flynt, lakshman and tushar)
the linux command line: a full introduction (shotts)
evil great shell scripts (taylor and perry)

network-centric:

aggressive network self-defense (wyler, potter and hurley)
hacking exposed: network security secrets & solutions (mcclure et al)
the hacker’s handbook: breaking into & defense networks (young and aitel)
silence on the wire: a field guide to passive reconnaissance and indirect attacks (zalewski)

programming and scripting:

bash guide for beginners (paneczko)
black hat python (seitz and arnold)
black hat go (steele, patten and kottmann)
coding for penetration testers: building better tools (andress and linn)
grey hat python: python programming for hackers and reverse engineers (seitz)
python violent: a cookbook (o’connor)

tool guides:

learn nessus for penetration testing (kumar)
metasploit: the penetration tester’s guide (kennedy)
metasploit penetration testing cookbook ( teixeira, singh, and agarwal)
nmap network scanning: the official guide to the nmap project (fyodor)
nmap cookbook 6: the fat-free guide to network security scanning net (marsh)
penetration tester open source toolkit (faircloth)

specialized:

android hacker’s handbook (drake et al)
google hacking for penetration testers (long, gardner and brown)
hacking exposed cisco networks: security cisco (vladimirov et al)
ios hacker’s manual (miller et al)
practical iot hacking (chantzis et al)
protection of the smart grid: next generation power grid security (flick and morehouse)
shellcoder’s manual: discovering and exploiting security holes (anley)
social engineering: the art of Human Hacking (Hadnagy et al)
The Automotive Hacker’s Handbook: A Guide for the Penetration Tester (Smith)
The Database Hacker’s Handbook : Defending Database Servers (Litchfield et al)
The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making & breaking hardware (huang)
the mac hacker’s handbook (miller and zovi)
the mobile app hacker’s handbook (chell)
unauthorized access : physical penetration testing for it security teams (allsopp)
drive and wireless penetration testing (hurley et al)

dig deeper:

a guide to kernel exploitation: attacking the kernel (pearl and oldani)
advanced penetration testing: hacking the world’s most secure networks (allsopp)
advanced penetration testing for highly secure environments (allen and cardwell)
advanced persistent threat hacking: the art & science of hacking (wrightson)
applied machine learning/neural networks: offensive security (atkins)
managed code rootkits: connecting to runtime environments (metula)
ninja hacking: unconventional penetration tests (wilhelm and andress)
rootkits and bootkits (matrosov, rodionov and bratus)

if you’re looking for a little more storytelling, here’s one more list:

afternoons by the fire:

countdown to day zero: stuxnet (zetter)
dark territory: the secret history of cyber warfare (kaplan)
hack dissection: the net f0rb1dd3n (street, nabors and baskin)
fatal system error: looking for the new crime lords taking down the internet (menn)
ghost in the wires: my adventures as the hacker world’s most wanted (mitnick)
hackers & painters: great ideas of the computer age (graham)
how to hack like a porn star: break into a bank (sparc flow)
i, robot (asimov)
Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld (carr)
kingpin (poulsen)
neuromancer (gibson)
1984 (1984) (orwell)
no place to hide: snowden, the nsa and the u.s. surveillance state (greenwald)
the cuckoo’s egg: following a spy through the maze of computer espionage (stoll)
the girl with the dragon tattoo (larsson)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
The Decoy (Schroeder)
Zero Day: The Threat in Cyberspace (The Washington and O’Harrow Post)

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