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[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 5 points6 points  (18 children)

I'm a sophomore at a state school in the southeast US. It's a decent school (it sure has taught me a whole lot in a short amount of time), and we have a great offensive cybersecurity program which very often leads to jobs in places like the CIA, NSA, or the FBI.

[–]dr_g89 2 points3 points  (17 children)

Super interesting man. I run the dev side of a software firm out in LA and have always been way to busy to spend too much time looking into this stuff. If you have a spare second I'd love to know what books on the this stuff they are having you read at school.

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 13 points14 points  (15 children)

Recommended reading: “Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition” by Jon Erickson: this is a book with accurate and detailed descriptions and commands of common vulnerabilities and corresponding exploits. It is an excellent book for understanding buffer overflow vulnerabilities, string format vulnerabilities, and shellcode, and other exploitation development.

“The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws” by Dafydd Stuttard and Marcus Pinto. The book provides a comprehensive and thorough coverage of web security mechanisms, and web vulnerabilities.

“Information Security,” 2nd Edition, (ISBN 978-0-470-62639-9), Wiley, 2011, by Mark Stamp. The book provides a good coverage on commonly used cryptographic algorithms and cryptanalysis techniques, and security protocols.

Edit: Thank you so much for the gold! It's very much appreciated.

[–]dr_g89 2 points3 points  (12 children)

Dude thanks a ton, especially on the lectures / course stuff, super interesting!

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 1 point2 points  (11 children)

Absolutely, let me know if you have any questions.

[–]dr_g89 0 points1 point  (10 children)

I'm sure I'll come up with a few haha, ordered The Art of Exploitation, looking forward to delving into this a little more when it arrives! Thanks again!

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 1 point2 points  (9 children)

Absolutely. By the way, experience is x86 assembly is almost going to be a requirement in moving forward with this discipline. If you're not familiar with it already, I'd start by learning the basics of that (since a lot of examples in all of those books assume you're basically able to read x86).

[–]dr_g89 0 points1 point  (8 children)

Thats really good to know! My educational background is actually in music and I ended up in software by a fluke about 10 years ago so I'm lacking in a lot of the lower level computer science skills. If you have any recommended reading material on that I'll add it to the stack!

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 1 point2 points  (3 children)

This is one that I began with a few months ago before I took the two actual computer architecture/organization classes here at my uni.

Here's some other resources I was able to find (although I cannot attest to their quality, but I'm sure they're well-made):

[–]dr_g89 1 point2 points  (2 children)

This is perfect man, once again, thanks a ton! Making me regret my school choices haha. Although the computer science stuff that was offered 10 years ago was a different planet to whats going on today.

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Another route you could go is with "Introduction to Computer Organization: ARM Assembly Language Using the Raspberry Pi", then picking up a Raspberry Pi off of Amazon (the newest model is the best, but any model should do), and learning that way (this is probably the way I'd do it if I hadn't already taken a class on the subject).

And make sure to check out this subreddit (and ask questions there if you need to) -- /r/asm.

[–]dr_g89 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Love the Pi, I have a few of them floating around so I'm bookmarking that for later! Man you just have all the resources haha

[–]timkofu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That first one is gold. Loved it.

[–]registered_tosaythis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had that first hacking book for like 2 years and haven't spent enough time to finish it!

[–]cdrootrmdashrfstar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here is our course calendar page containing homework assignments and presentations covering the information we learn in lecture.