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Top Cybersecurity Books for Beginners: Master the Art of Ethical Hacking

Q: Q1. Why is it important to study Cyber Security?

Ans. Computer systems and networks are becoming more susceptible to cybercriminal activity due to the fast evolution of technology. This situation has made it necessary to execute cyber security practices, making it one of the most essential sectors of employment with a wealth of profitable job prospects. The skills that you will learn by studying Cyber Security will help you grow as a Cyber Security professional, and you can implement these skills in safeguarding sensitive data against theft.

Q: Q2. How long does it take to acquire Cyber Security Certifications?

Ans. There are many different certifications available; you can choose whatever certification is suitable for you. Most certificates require you to pass an exam to obtain them. Everything mostly depends on how quickly you can pick up new ideas. However, the students typically receive certifications six months after completing an online Cyber Security course.

Q: Q3. Are Cyber Security Certifications worth it?

Ans. Yes. Cyber Security Certifications are a wonderful way to get selected for interviews. Most employers prefer to interview applicants who have the desired skill set certifications. So, earning a Cyber Security Certification will be an added advantage for you to showcase your skills and give a competitive edge to your career in the Cyber Security field.

Understanding Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking

Cybersecurity, the cornerstone of digital safety, is the practice of protecting electronic information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. As cyber threats continue to evolve, understanding and implementing robust cybersecurity measures becomes increasingly crucial for individuals, businesses, and governments alike.

This blog post introduces a curated list of top cybersecurity books, designed to equip beginners with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complex landscape of digital security. From foundational concepts to advanced techniques, these books offer valuable insights into protecting data, networks, and systems from potential threats.

Essential Cybersecurity Books for Beginners

1. A Beginner’s Guide To Computer Hacking, Basic Security And Penetration Testing

This book on hacking is helpful for beginners. It can assist you in starting your career as an ethical hacker. It discusses various topics such as the history of hacking, different sorts of hackers, types of hacking assaults, crucial hacking tools and software, and masking IP addresses. Additionally, it discusses spoofing attacks, email address hacking, penetration testing, and mobile hacking.

What will you gain?

Knowledge of different Hacking Tools
Learn about various spoofing attacks and how to address them
Common attack methodologies that are used to target networks and websites

2. Hacking: The Art Of Exploitation

Author: Jon Erickson

This famous book is available in two editions. It highlights computer and network security. This book gives you a hacker's viewpoint on C programming. You will discover how to write programs in C and shell scripts here. This book will help you learn how to crack encrypted wireless traffic, speed up brute-force attacks and hijack TCP connections.

What will you gain?

The topics covered by these books include how hackers work, how hackers operate, how hackers attack and how their methods can be prevented.
You will also learn about the various tools used by hackers in order to carry out their attacks.

Tip: Are you looking for a career in cybersecurity? Not sure where to start? Check out our handy guide to the most popular cybersecurity career path. We'll tell you what skills you need, what job roles you can expect to fill, and what salaries you can expect to earn.

3. Metasploit: The Penetration Tester’s Guide

Authors: David Kennedy, Jim O'Gorman, Devon Kearns, and Mati Aharoni

This is one of the best books for cyber security beginners guide you on how to use Metasploit framework to prevent security breaches. You will learn how to use the framework’s interfaces, module system, advanced penetration techniques, wireless attacks and social engineering attacks. So, this is a complete guide on implementing hacking skills.

What will you gain?

Implementing security measures and protecting yourself from hackers.
Find and exploit unmaintained, misconfigured and unpatched systems.

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

Author: Georgia Weidman

This book emphasizes the fundamental skills and methods required by a penetration tester. You'll become familiar with the initial phases of a real assessment, such as information collection, identifying vulnerabilities, gaining access to networks, etc.

Additionally, you will learn how to bypass antivirus software, execute exploits, automate assaults and leverage the Metasploit framework to create your own Metasploit modules.

What will I gain?

Learn how hackers use social engineering techniques to trick users into giving away their passwords and other sensitive information.
Learn the process of testing a computer security system to identify and exploit its vulnerabilities.

Tip: Becoming a cyber security expert can be tough, but Cybersecurity Certifications can help you start on the right track. Check out our guide on most in-demand Cybersecurity Certifications & get hired in top companies!

5. The Hacker Playbook - Practical Guide To Penetration Testing

Author: Peter Kim

This is one of the best cyber security books for beginners that introduces tactics, assaults, exploits and techniques for penetration testing. This guide will help you in improving your hacking skills and attack strategies. It also focuses on practical assaults, exploitation, original malware, persistence, and other security issues.

What will you gain?

Learn about hacking techniques such as buffer overflows, stack smashing and SQL injection attacks.
Learn information gathering techniques like reconnaissance and scanning for vulnerable systems.

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

Authors: Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig

You can analyze, debug and disassemble malicious software by learning the security analysis techniques with the help of this book. Additionally, you will learn how to set up a secure virtual environment for malware analysis, decode malware and assess the threat it has caused.

What will you gain?

Gain a better understanding of the penetration testing process.
Learn about the tools that are available for researching and finding vulnerabilities.

Tip: Have a look at this Ethical Hacker Tutorials Guide for Beginners to get a complete overview of how to become an ethical hacker.

7. Social Engineering: The Science Of Human Hacking

Author: Christopher Hadnagy

This book illustrates the most popular social engineering techniques and demonstrates how they were applied in the past. Here, you will learn how to look at typical social engineering techniques, examine how social engineers can manipulate emotions and adopt successful defenses against hacking.

What will you gain?

You will become familiar with some of the common types of attacks, such as SQL injection, XSS, LDAP injection and more.
You will become familiar with some of the common types of vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows and more.

8. Applied Cryptography: Protocols Algorithms & Source Code In C

Authors: Bruce Schneier

This cyber security book offers a thorough analysis of modern cryptography.

It explains how experts can encrypt and decrypt messages using cryptography. It encompasses a variety of cryptography techniques and demonstrates how to address security issues.

What will you gain?

Learn about different cryptographic algorithms & coding techniques.
Learn how to address security issues and identify threats.

Tip: If you are looking to up-skill. Take this 2-minute Cybersecurity DevOps Quiz to check your knowledge and stay updated with the latest updates and innovations in Cybersecurity.

9. Black Hat Python: Python Programming For Hackers & Pentesters

Author: Justin Seitz

This book will help you learn how to infect virtual computers, write network sniffers, and make stealthy trojans. The basics of networking, online applications, and windows privilege escalation techniques are covered in this book.

What will you gain?

Detects sandboxing and automates common malware tasks, like keylogging and screenshotting.
Escalate Windows privileges with creative process control.
Use offensive memory forensics tricks to retrieve password hashes and inject shellcode into a virtual machine.

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

Author: Dafydd Stuttard and Marcus Pinto

It discusses the most recent step-by-step techniques for both attacking and defending the wide variety of constantly evolving Web apps. In addition, it talks about HTML5, UI redress, hybrid file assaults and new remoting frameworks.

What will you gain?

Learn how to overcome the new technologies and techniques aimed at defending web applications against attacks that have appeared since the previous edition.
Discusses new remoting frameworks, HTML5, cross-domain integration techniques, UI redress, framebusting, HTTP parameter pollution, hybrid file attacks and more.

Tip: Join the JanBask Cybersecurity Community to get career advice and the latest industry updates.

11. Hacking: Computer Hacking, Security Testing, Penetration Testing and Basic Security

Author: John Slavio

This book contains all the fundamentals of hacking as well as the complex techniques and methods you can use to hack. It does not exclude any of the intricate intricacies necessary for hacking, just employs simple technical language that even non-technical people can understand.

What will you gain?

The proven steps and techniques that the best hackers use.
Learn the intricate techniques and methods that you can use to hack.

12. Computer Hacking Beginners Guide

Author: Alan T. Norman

Beginners who want to learn how to create their first hack should read this book. It includes every method employed by both unethical and illegal hackers. You will study all there is to know about how information security may be hacked and how to spot assaults on any system. Along with several ethical hacking ideas, you will also learn about spoofing tactics, WiFi hacking, email hacking, and other related topics.

What will you gain?

It provides a complete overview of hacking, cracking, and their effect on the world.
You'll learn about the prerequisites for hacking, the various types of hackers, and the many kinds of hacking attacks:

13. Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas From Computer Age

Author: Paul Graham

You will discover more about hackers, their driving forces, and the importance of their work. The importance of beauty in software design, wealth creation, free expression, the open-source movement, internet startups, the revival of programming languages, digital design, and many other topics are covered in this book.

What will you gain?

Learn about hacking technologies and their implementation in different areas.
Help you gain a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live.

Tip: Are you looking to prepare for Cybersecurity basics? Check out our quick guide to Cybersecurity Certifications & Training RoadMap.

14. Advanced Penetration Testing: Hacking The World’s Most Secure Networks

Author: Wil Allsopp

It includes several cutting-edge hacking methods for high-security settings. A complicated and extremely realistic attack simulation utilising Kali Linux and Metasploit samples is also included in the book. Additionally, you will learn how to use credentials that you have obtained to penetrate deeply into networks and operating systems.

What will you gain?

This book shows you how to defend your high security network.
Learn how to escalate privilege and breach networks, operating systems, and trust structures Infiltrate further using harvested credentials.

15. The Hardware Hacker: Adventures In Making and Breaking Hardware

Author: Andrew Bunnie Huang

It includes a number of interviews and personal essays on a variety of subjects, including the legality of reverse engineering, the rule of law, intellectual property policies between China and the United States, and many more. It offers a thorough analysis of the problems associated with open-source hardware and includes extremely granular sections on manufacture.

What will you gain?

Provides a comprehensive take on hardware issues.
Get a guide to reverse engineering, hacking, and how to make a physical attack on your own computer.

16. BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing Beginner’s Guide

Author: Vivek Ramachandran

This book was written for beginners so that they could quickly comprehend the ideas and methods used in wireless attacks. Each attack is explained in detail with detailed visuals and lab-style processes. The reader should be familiar with Backtrack and the fundamentals of wireless technology. Therefore, this book is for you if you are an IT expert or security consultant with some familiarity with Backtrack.

What will you gain?

You can easily grasp the concepts and understand the techniques to perform wireless attacks in your lab.
You will practically implement various attacks as you go along.

Tip: Salary is a key factor before approaching any domain. Take a quick look at this article on CISSP Salary: Check Average Salary Before You Start Learning CISSP!

17. Gray Hat Hacking: The Ethical Hacker’s Handbook

Authors: Allen Harper, Ryan Linn, Stephen Sims, Michael Baucom, Huascar Tejeda, Daniel Fernandez, Moses Frost

This book teaches you practical ethical hacking techniques that can be used to strengthen computer networks. It includes practical planning and analytical techniques for spotting a hacker's cunning tools, techniques, and strategies and how to counter them using tried-and-true solutions, testing laboratories and case studies.

What will you gain?

Learn the use-after-free technique used in recent zero days
Hijack web browsers with advanced XSS attacks
Understand ransomware and how it takes control of your desktop
Dissect Android malware with JEB and DAD decompilers

18. Mastering Hacking (The Art of Information Gathering & Scanning)

Author: Harsh Bothra

Both expert and non-technical readers will benefit from this book's streamlined explanation of hacking. You will get comprehensive knowledge of the most recent tools and methods used by the contemporary penetration testing framework to find vulnerabilities, fix them and safeguard network assets.

What will I gain?

This book tells about the uses and real-life applications of various techniques in depth, and this acts as a handbook for your concrete step in information security.
Through this book, you would be able to learn about the modern Penetration Testing Framework, latest tools and techniques, discovering vulnerabilities, patching vulnerabilities, responsible disclosures and protecting assets over the network.

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Becoming a Cybersecurity Professional

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to becoming a cybersecurity professional. However, there are some key steps that will help you on your way.

It is important to develop a strong understanding of computer systems and how they work. This will give you a solid foundation on which to build your cybersecurity knowledge.
You need to learn about the various types of security threats that exist and how to protect against them. This will require some research and study, but there are many excellent resources available to help you.Once you have a good understanding of cybersecurity, you can begin to specialize in a particular area.
This could be network security, data security, or even online security. There are many different sub-disciplines within cybersecurity, so you can find an area that interests you and focus on that.
Finally, it is important to keep up to date with the latest developments in cybersecurity. This is an ever-changing field, so it is important to stay up to date with the latest news and trends. There are many ways to do this, including reading industry news, attending conferences, and networking with other professionals.

Tip: Cyber security experts are highly demanded in this era, because of the growth of hacking, cyber attacks, and awareness of such harmful threats. Check out our guide on how to become a cyber security expert and give an edge to your career graph.

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The Future of Cybersecurity

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, the scope of cybersecurity is also expanding. With more businesses and individuals moving their operations online, the need to protect against cyberattacks is more important than ever.

There are several steps that businesses and individuals can take to protect themselves against cyberattacks, and the cybersecurity industry is constantly developing new tools and technologies to stay ahead of the curve.

Tip: Are you interested in a career in cybersecurity? Do you want to know how much you could be earning? Check out our Cybersecurity salary guide. We have collected data from various sources to show you the average salary for various cybersecurity positions.

Conclusion

This blog offers an overview of the best cybersecurity books for beginners. Each of these best cyber security books for beginners gives a run-through approach to various Cybersecurity techniques and aspects. If you want to pursue your career in the Cybersecurity field, these best books for cyber security beginners are a must-read. You will acquire the essential skills to become a pro & get hired by top companies.

Additionally, if you take your Cybersecurity career to the next level, you can enroll in our top Cybersecurity Training & Certification Program. You will gain hands-on experience by working on real-world projects & get trained by our industry experts to get job ready!

FAQs On Cyber Security Online Courses

Q1. Why is it important to study Cyber Security?

Computer systems and networks are becoming more susceptible to cybercriminal activity due to the fast evolution of technology. This situation has made it necessary to execute cyber security practices, making it one of the most essential sectors of employment with a wealth of profitable job prospects. The skills that you will learn by studying Cyber Security will help you grow as a Cyber Security professional, and you can implement these skills in safeguarding sensitive data against theft.

Q2. How long does it take to acquire Cyber Security Certifications?

There are many different certifications available; you can choose whatever certification is suitable for you. Most certificates require you to pass an exam to obtain them. Everything mostly depends on how quickly you can pick up new ideas. However, the students typically receive certifications six months after completing an online Cyber Security course.

Q3. Are Cyber Security Certifications worth it?

Yes. Cyber Security Certifications are a wonderful way to get selected for interviews.

Most employers prefer to interview applicants who have the desired skill set certifications. So, earning a Cyber Security Certification will be an added advantage for you to showcase your skills and give a competitive edge to your career in the Cyber Security field.

Q4. How can Cyber Security Online Courses help you learn Cybersecurity concepts?

Cyber Security online courses are a great way to learn Cybersecurity concepts. They are easy to understand and they carry over the concept which has been taught in the classroom. The main advantage of these courses is that they help the students gain practical knowledge of Cybersecurity. The online courses help them learn the basic concepts of Cybersecurity interactively.

The online courses also help make learning more interesting as it allows students to interact with each other as well as with their teachers through forums, blogs and other such interactive mediums.

Q5. What jobs are available once I complete the Cyber Security Training Program?

The Cyber Security Training Program is designed for students who want to learn about Cybersecurity, but also want a career in the field. The program will give you the knowledge, skills and experience that employers are looking for.

Once you complete the Cyber Security Training Program, you will be able to work as an IT professional in many different industries including government agencies, military installations, banking institutions, hospital networks and more.

The following jobs are available after completing the Cyber Security Training Program:

Security Analyst - This job is similar to a detective who investigates computer security incidents and attacks. They use their knowledge of cyber security concepts and recognize potential problems before they become threats to organizations.
Network Administrator - Network Administrators work with network hardware and software to provide network access for employees throughout an organization or at an individual department level.
Cyber Security Analyst - The role of a cyber security analyst is to provide advice, guidance and support for all aspects of cybersecurity policy and strategy. They should also be able to manage their projects and work independently from other members of the team.
Cyber Security Engineer - The job title “cyber security engineer” covers a wide range of duties that require an understanding of both technical concepts and people skills. They will often be involved in developing new products or building on existing ones, but there may also be times when they need to put these ideas into practice to ensure they work as intended.
Chief Information Security Officer - A CISO is responsible for managing information security issues within an organization. They must be able to oversee IT security policies, protect data, and enforce compliance standards.

Q6. What are the prerequisites for taking a cyber security course?

There are no specific requirements for taking a cyber security course. However, it is recommended that you have some basic knowledge of computers and the internet. Additionally, you must have good problem-solving skills and a strong analytical mind to think critically about the problems that you face when it comes to cyber security issues.

Q7. How much does Cyber Security Certification cost?

Cyber security certification can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. The cost of the certification will depend on the provider and the level of certification. Some providers offer free or discounted certification for those who are already working in the field of cyber security. You can select from a wide range of online Cyber Security certification courses available online.

Q8. What kind of people are best suited for careers in Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving field, which means that the best way to find work in cybersecurity is to meet people with the right skills and knowledge.

Cybersecurity professionals need an understanding of both computer science and networking technologies. A degree in these areas will help you understand how computers, networks and software all work together. You'll also need a deep knowledge of how hackers attack systems so that you can detect them before they cause damage.

You may not need a degree in computer science or networking, but if you have any experience working with computers or networks, it will help your career prospects. The best way to learn more about cybersecurity is by enrolling in online courses.

Q9. What are the objectives of the Cyber Security Online Course?

The course aims to provide a better understanding of cyber security in an online environment. The course also aims to equip students with the knowledge, practical skills and tools they need to be effective professionals in this field.

Q10. What will I learn by enrolling in an online Cyber Security Course?

By enrolling in online Cyber Security Course, the students will learn:

You will be able to apply their knowledge of IT to real-world problems by studying topics such as legal aspects of cyber security and how to protect data from hackers.
You will learn about tools such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems, which can be used to detect malicious activity on a network.
You will also be introduced to concepts that are related to cyber security such as risk management, threat modeling, and incident response.
The course will also focus on common cyber threats such as viruses, worms, Trojans and other malware. Finally, you will learn how best practices can be applied in an organization so that they can prevent or identify attacks before they occur.

Do you have additional questions on this blog ‘ Top 18Cybersecurity Books For Beginners In 2022’? Please drop us in the comment section below. Our team of experts will reach out to you.

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Shubham Singh

With his detailed research and unique insights into IT and Technological trends, Shubham has been producing high-quality and engaging content that meets the standards of its end-users.