5 Best Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Books | Must read

Looking for best best hacking books? We have short listed some of the highly recommended books for beginners and advanced hackers. The ethical hacking books may help you get the best security professional job you aspire.

Hacking is considered to be a two-way tool where in a computer system is penetrated either to make it more secure or to create mischief. Ethical hacking is defined as making use of programming skills, so as to penetrate a computer system, and determine itsvulnerabilities. The ethical hackers are skilled computer experts, often called as the“white hats”. As against non-ethical hackers or “black hats” that penetrate into a computer system and exploit it for their own personal gains or mischief, the “white hats” evaluate and point out the vulnerabilities of system software, and suggest system changes to make it less penetrable.

Are you willing to become an ethical hacker? One of the best way is to start reading books about hackingand try it yourself. Some of the best how to hack books that an aspiring ethical hacker must read are:

Hacker’s Playbook: Practical Guide for Ethical Hacking

This book is a must read for beginners. This book focuses on many common obstacles people face during beginning of the ethical hacking. This book can help beginners do their job more efficiently.

This is one of the best books which will take you through the technicalities of areas like programming, shell code and exploitation. Regardless of whether you are a beginner or have very little hacking knowledge, this book will help you understand the complexities of the digital security tasks

Metasploit: The Penetration Tester’s Guide

This book deals with Penetration Testing by making use of the open source Metasploit Framework testing. It is suitable for readers who have no prior knowledge of Metasploit. The tutorial-like style of the book makes you learn things by doing them.

The ending of the book provides you with an actual penetration test’s simulated version so as to provide you with a realistic experience.

Kali Linux: Wireless Penetration Testing Beginner’s Guide

An updated version of BackTrack 5 Penetration Testing by Vivek Ramachandran. Right from the beginning, this book gives you what you need, without wasting time in unnecessary justifications. Instead of explaining only theoretical concepts, the book consists of finely tuned and crystal clear tutorials that can be easliy performed in Kali Linux. It provides a good mix of basics and high level knowledge and works cohesively with the reader.

Mastering Kali Linux: For Advanced Penetration Testing

This is undoubtedly one of the most well written books of all times. Like previous book It also go around Kali Linux but in a different manner. You might have a different taste of the way of learning, so this can be a good choice for you.

It provides crisp and clear writing with relevant examples along with a humorous touch to enliven the dry and mundane subject. The contents of the book are well organized in a neither too chatty nor too dry manner. However, you require some basic networking background to derive full benefits from this book.

Black Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters

The best thing about this book is that it covers all the basics of penetration testing and hacking using Python Language, without assuming that the reader has any prior hacking knowledge and programming experience. It will take you from the very basics of python to hacking and penetrating the system and network using the same. It provides a step-by-step journey of penetration testing, moving from Information Gathering to Scanning, Exploitation all using Python Programming. It is a great choice if you have interest in programming or you are a Python lover like me.

BONUS !

The Hacker Playbook 2: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing

Surprisingly the second edition of the book is not just a simple edit. Writer has put in much effort in this book to stand out of the league and make it a real sequel of the previous legacy that Hacker’s Playbook 1 left behind. Not only you will learn some amazing techniques but also there are a lot more new techniques than the previous print.

This could be your Guru Book for the time. I have personally read it and would give a 5-Star rating easily.

Unlike other books this covers a broad variety of tools, methods of penetration testing where other books might be useful to you to cover the verticals of a specific tool/technique. This book outperforms any other book on penetration testing for beginners and advanced penetration tester.

Hope you liked the list and may it be helpful for you ethical hacking and penetration testing career.