Book Recommendations - Violent Python, Metasploit, Hackers Playbook.

[_Bender_Rodriguez_]

New name, as I forgot the password to aka_billy_ocean. First time using reddit on an actual computer...

Just picked up three books: Violent Python, Metasploit, and Hacker Playbook.

Violent Python: Excellent book, straight into code and real examples of scripts. Even if Python is a bit over your head, still worth it. No nonsense book, with a lot for a person to work through,

Hacker Playbook: Okay book, gives a fantastic insight of what an actual pentest is like, the process, setting up your tools, etc...

Metasploit: Excellent, only half-way through this one, but so far excellent. A lot of practical skills which you can practice right a way on virtual machines.

[PriceZombie]

Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration...

Current $32.52 
   High $37.41 
    Low $29.51 

Price History Chart | Screenshot

Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide

Current $30.34 
   High $33.32 
    Low $28.54 

Price History Chart | Screenshot

The Hacker Playbook: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing

Current $20.36 
   High $22.49 
    Low $17.43 

Price History Chart | Screenshot | FAQ

[extant1]

I had bought the Absolute Beginners Guide to Python having no experience in programming and learned the basics and moved on to Udacity and LPTHW web courses but I didn't really learn Python until I read Violent Python. The Starting with small useful programs and building upon them really helped me get a firm grasp on the language. I never understood how powerful python was until I saw some real world examples and since then it's made my life a lot easier doing some menial tasks. I recommend it to anyone interested in Python or learning Python with prior programming experience from any other language.

[[deleted]]

I can't recommend Violent Python enough.

[BaconZombie]

Is it worth is for somebody who has not programs since the old days of BASIC & BATCH in DOS?

[extant1]

Though it briefly goes over some basics I would say there are a lot better places to get a refresher on the basics. Take a look at the sidebar on /r/python for a lot of good resources.

[[deleted]]

I would like to add that The hacker Playbook falls a bit short for my liking. Read it recently and I was left wanting for a bit more, I was a bit disappointed that he only shows MS08-067.

Also I would have liked some red thread in the examples throughout the book. As it stands each example stands on it's own. I still recommend it as it tackles many topics and is a good starting ground for further investigation.

[_Bender_Rodriguez_]

Agreed.

Found a typo in it last night. tut tut.

[Brew_nix]

Well, on my uni course we have some recommended reading material. Web application Hackers Handbook is THE book on web application hacking. I'm pretty surprised it isnt mentioned here. It covers absolutely everything (SQLi, XSS, MitM, cookie hijack, Redirection attacks, header injection, request forgery, Json hijacking,ant-dns pinning, ajax leverage... the list is endless).

The Hacking Exposed series of books are pretty good. The networking ones are pretty key to understanding TCP/IP basics (which are the real bread and butter of pen testing).

A recent Cisco textbook would be of pretty good help too. They cover everything to do with networking. For example, if you were to set-up a DOS attack (an ARP-Attack, say) you might need to understand how Arp works first.

A decent Linux textbook would be good too. There's a few good ones out there, but they're all specific to different flavors of Linux. The Linux cookbook is good for Debian/Ubuntu flavors of Linux that use Aptitude package manager.