Best Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking Books

Cybersecurity is a rapidly growing industry in today's world. As a result, many new avenues are opening for prospective employees in cybersecurity. A few books will prove helpful in your pursuit of cybersecurity knowledge. This post will guide you through the top cybersecurity and ethical hacking books. In these books, you can find new ideas and answers to your cybersecurity questions.

What Is Cybersecurity?

Let's review the basics of cybersecurity before we get into the top recommendations for this topic. Cybersecurity is defending computer systems, networks, and the data stored within them from intrusion and digital attacks. Cyberattacks are what we call these kinds of assaults on the internet.

Loss of money, reputation and sensitive information are all direct results of cyberattacks on businesses. Therefore, it is essential to take precautions against cyberattacks.

The Definition of Ethical Hacking

Identifying and exploiting a system's vulnerabilities is the essence of ethical hacking. Our motivation is to protect the integrity of the system.

Ethical hackers are those that hack responsibly. Ethical hackers only carry out hacking of this nature with the express approval of the appropriate authorities. Ethical hacking makes use of a wide range of hacking methods and software.

Top 10 Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking Books to Read in 2023

1. Hacking: A Beginners' Guide to Computer Hacking, Basic Security, And Penetration Testing

By: John Slavio

• This hacking guidebook is excellent for those just starting. It's a great tool for anyone looking to launch a career in ethical hacking.

• This book delves into the background of hacking, the numerous categories of hackers, the various types of hacking attacks, the essential hacking tools and software, and the methods for keeping one's IP address secret.

• There's additional discussion of spoofing attacks, penetration testing, and hacking email accounts and mobile devices.

2. Hacking: The Art of Exploitation

By: Jon Erickson

• The first edition of this hacking classic came out in 2003, and the second in 2008.

• Network and computer safety are its main concerns. Now in its second edition, this book is a hacker's guide to the C programming language. Your computer programming education will focus on using the C language and shell scripts.

• In addition to the many other valuable skills you'll pick up from this book, you'll also learn how to: crack encrypted wireless traffic, speed up brute-force attacks, and hijack TCP connections.

3. Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide

Co-written by Mati Aharoni, Devon Kearns, David Kennedy, and Jim O'Gorman

• Hackers rely heavily on frameworks like Metasploit to locate and exploit security flaws. However, it may be difficult for first-time users. Therefore, if you want to learn about Metasploit, this book is for you.

• Network reconnaissance, client-side attacks, wireless attacks, and targeted socialengineering attacks are only some of the advanced penetration testing techniques covered in this book.

• Integrating NeXpose, Nmap, and Nessus with Metasploit for automated discovery is also covered.

4. Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking

By: Georgia Weidman

• Tossing some light on penetration testing, this cyber security book. Penetration testers uncover security flaws in software, networks, and operating systems.

• The fundamental knowledge and methods needed by a penetration tester are the emphasis of this book. Gathering information, identifying vulnerabilities, gaining access to networks, and so on are all typical components of an accurate assessment, and you'll become familiar with them here.

• In addition to the skills above, you will also learn how to leverage the Metasploit framework to launch exploits and to write your Metasploit modules, as well as how to crack passwords, circumvent anti-virus software, and automate attacks.

5. The Hacker Playbook 3: Practical Guide to Penetration Testing

By: Peter Kim

• The Hacker's Playbook, Version 3, is the latest version in the series. It includes novel approaches, assaults, exploits, and recommendations. In addition to introducing novel ideas, it also features a reiteration or two of methods presented in earlier releases.

• To get to know the Red Team, read The Hacker Playbook 3: Red Team Edition. Red teams are used to put your organization's defense through its paces by simulating actual, sophisticated attacks.

• You should read this to improve your offensive hacking skills and methods. Real-world threats, exploitation, custom malware, persistence, and more are also covered.

6. Practical Malware Analysis: The Hands-On Guide to Dissecting Malicious Software

Both Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig contributed to this article.

• Malware refers to any malicious software that can use to compromise a computer system. Practical Malware Analysis is a book that teaches readers how to analyze malware using various tools and methods currently in use by cybersecurity professionals.

• Learn how to inspect, debug, and deconstruct harmful programs with the help of this book.

• You will also learn how to isolate malware in a virtual machine, examine it, assess the damage it has done, remove it from your network, and check to ensure it doesn't come back.

7. Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking

By: Christopher Hadnagy

• Human blunders are the key to social engineering's success in accessing sensitive data. Can Systems, but no code can provide absolute certainty regarding safeguarding information.

• This book illustrates the historical application of the most popular social engineering techniques.

• In this lesson, you'll learn to identify and assess potential social engineering attacks, investigate how social engineers might exploit victims' emotions, implement effective countermeasures to prevent hacking, and much more.

8. Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C

By: Bruce Schneier

• This information security text covers all the bases when discussing today's cryptography.

• Encryption and decryption procedures for use by cryptography-trained experts are laid out.

• Multiple cryptographic algorithms are included, demonstrating approaches to common security issues.

9. Black Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters

By: Justin Seitz

• You will learn how to use GitHub to build an exploit framework, detect sandboxing, and automate everyday malware tasks; many exploit frameworks are written in Python.

• In this book, you'll learn how to infect virtual machines, write network sniffers, make stealthy trojans, and use Python's less savory features.

• This book covers networking basics, web apps, and tricks to elevate your Windows privileges.

10. The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws

By: Dafydd Stuttard and Marcus Pinto

• This book's second edition covers modern Web applications and the threats they pose, including the ability to conduct fraudulent financial transactions.

• It discusses the most up-to-date, detailed strategies for attacking and defending the wide variety of dynamic Web applications. It covers HTML5, UI redress, hybrid file attacks, and new remoting frameworks.

• Some other ideas include attacking authentication, the application server, discovering vulnerabilities in the source code, etc.

Conclusion

Without question, ethical hacking is a demanding and responsible activity. It comprises stopping hostile hackers from bypassing security measures and anti-virus software technologies. Enormous organizations spend large sums of money on security professionals and ethical hackers to mimic the exploitation of security system flaws. So, have fun studying ethical hacking from these eight books and start your path as an ethical hacker shortly if you still need to.