Best Ethical Hacking books 2023 to learn hacking for beginners

Do you want to learn Hacking? Actually, it is not an easy task to become an expert in ethical hacking until you have basic knowledge about computers and network security. But following an appropriate guide can really help you to break the hurdles and experts always recommend starting with books. In this article, you will find some Best Ethical Hacking books 2023 to learn hacking for beginners which can show you the path to enter into the world of hacking.

Practical Hardware Pentesting: A guide to attacking embedded systems and protecting them against the most common hardware attacks
Author: Valle, Jean-Georges
Published at: 01/04/2021
ISBN: 1789619130

What you will learn

  • Perform an embedded system test and identify security critical functionalities
  • Locate critical security components and buses and learn how to attack them Discover how to dump and modify stored information
  • Understand and exploit the relationship between the firmware and hardware
  • Identify and attack the security functions supported by the functional blocks of the device
  • Develop an attack lab to support advanced device analysis and attacks


The Pentester BluePrint: Starting a Career as an Ethical Hacker
Author: Wylie, Phillip L.
Published at: 27/10/2020
ISBN: B08M5KWCRR

Perfect for IT workers and entry-level information security professionals, The Pentester BluePrint also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone seeking to transition to the exciting and in-demand field of penetration testing.

Written in a highly approachable and accessible style, The Pentester BluePrint avoids unnecessarily technical lingo in favor of concrete advice and practical strategies to help you get your start in pentesting. This book will teach you:

  • The foundations of pentesting, including basic IT skills like operating systems, networking, and security systems
  • The development of hacking skills and a hacker mindset
  • Where to find educational options, including college and university classes, security training providers, volunteer work, and self-study
  • Which certifications and degrees are most useful for gaining employment as a pentester
  • How to get experience in the pentesting field, including labs, CTFs, and bug bounties


CEH v11 Certified Ethical Hacker Study Guide
Author: Messier, Ric
Published at: 03/08/2021
ISBN: 1119800285

This study guide goes beyond test prep, providing practical hands-on exercises to reinforce vital skills and real-world scenarios that put what you’ve learned into the context of actual job roles.

  • Gain a unique certification that allows you to function like an attacker, allowing you to identify vulnerabilities so they can be remediated
  • Expand your career opportunities with an IT certificate that satisfies the Department of Defense's 8570 Directive for Information Assurance positions
  • Fully updated for the 2020 CEH v11 exam, including the latest developments in IT security
  • Access the Sybex online learning center, with chapter review questions, full-length practice exams, hundreds of electronic flashcards, and a glossary of key terms

Thanks to its clear organization, all-inclusive coverage, and practical instruction, the CEH v11 Certified Ethical Hacker Study Guide is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to understand the hacking process or anyone who wants to demonstrate their skills as a Certified Ethical Hacker.



Ethical Hacking: A Hands-on Introduction to Breaking In
Author: Graham, Daniel
Published at: 21/09/2021
ISBN: B08Y5LH95M

You’ll work with a wide range of professional penetration testing tools and learn to write your own tools in Python as you practice tasks like:     

  • Deploying the Metasploit framework’s reverse shells and embedding them in innocent-seeming files   
  • Capturing passwords in a corporate Windows network using Mimikatz   
  • Scanning (almost) every device on the internet to find potential victims   
  • Installing Linux rootkits that modify a victim’s operating system   
  • Performing advanced Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks that execute sophisticated JavaScript payloads  

Along the way, you’ll gain a foundation in the relevant computing technologies. Discover how advanced fuzzers work behind the scenes, learn how internet traffic gets encrypted, explore the inner mechanisms of nation-state malware like Drovorub, and much more.



Cyber Security: This Book Includes: Hacking with Kali Linux, Ethical Hacking. Learn How to Manage Cyber Risks Using Defense Strategies and Penetration Testing for Information Systems Security
Author: Codings, Zach
Published at: 20/10/2019
ISBN: 1701275562

How do I secure my computer? What is malware and how do I get rid of it? Do I only need to worry about Phishing attacks via email? What if my personal email account, bank account, or other accounts were compromised? Sounds familiar? Keep reading...

Cybersecurity has changed significantly in the past decade, we’ve moved away from the days when basic virus protection and security controls were sufficient to deter threats, to the need for advanced security analytics tools to prevent advanced persistent threats (APTs) and tackle malicious insiders.

This book includes Hacking with Kali Linux:  A Beginner’s Guide to Learn Penetration Testing to Protect Your Family and Business from Cyber Attacks Building a Home Security System for Wireless Network Security, What is hacking, The importance of cybersecurity, How malware and cyber-attacks operate, How to install Kali Linux on a virtual box, How to scan networks, VPNs & Firewalls, An introduction to Digital Signatures and Cryptography and much more...



Learn Ethical Hacking from Scratch: Your stepping stone to penetration testing
Author: Sabih, Zaid
Published at: 31/07/2018
ISBN: 1788622057

Learn how to hack systems like black hat hackers and secure them like security experts

Key Features

  • Understand how computer systems work and their vulnerabilities
  • Exploit weaknesses and hack into machines to test their security
  • Learn how to secure systems from hacker

What you will learn

  • Understand ethical hacking and the different fields and types of hackers
  • Set up a penetration testing lab to practise safe and legal hacking
  • Explore Linux basics, commands, and how to interact with the terminal
  • Access password-protected networks and spy on connected clients
  • Use server and client-side attacks to hack and control remote computers
  • Control a hacked system remotely and use it to hack other systems
  • Discover, exploit, and prevent a number of web application vulnerabilities such as XSS and SQL injections


Gray Hat Hacking: The Ethical Hacker's Handbook, Fifth Edition
Author: Harper, Allen
Published at: 08/06/2018
ISBN: 1260108414

Cutting-edge techniques for finding and fixing critical security flaws

Fortify your network and avert digital catastrophe with proven strategies from a team of security experts. Completely updated and featuring 13 new chapters, Gray Hat Hacking, The Ethical Hacker’s Handbook, Fifth Edition explains the enemy’s current weapons, skills, and tactics and offers field-tested remedies, case studies, and ready-to-try testing labs. Find out how hackers gain access, overtake network devices, script and inject malicious code, and plunder Web applications and browsers. Android-based exploits, reverse engineering techniques, and cyber law are thoroughly covered in this state-of-the-art resource. And the new topic of exploiting the Internet of things is introduced in this edition.



The Hacker Playbook 3: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing
Author: Peter Kim
Published at: 01/05/2018
ISBN: B07CSPFYZ2

The Hacker Playbook tops our list because it covers vast topics on penetration testing and hacking tutorials. It teaches you step-by-step procedures of penetration testing and guides you through practical methods, hands-on examples and helpful advice from experts. It is totally dedicated to penetration testing methods in an ethical manner which is really useful for beginners.


What you will learn:

  • Setting up a penetration box
  • How to scan networks and systems
  • Exploiting the scanner findings
  • Moving through the network without credentials
  • How to evade the anti-virus
  • Techniques for cracking passwords
  • Best practices and concepts for reporting


Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition
Author: Jon Erickson
Published at: 04/02/2008
ISBN: 1593271441

This book remains the best book to learn Hacking and a must read for every hacker. What makes it unique is that it spends more time explaining technical foundation and how things work from inside instead of directly taking you through tutorials. It will first make you understand underlying mechanism and architectures and then it teaches you how to outsmart security measures, corrupt system, wireless encryption cracking and network attacks etc.


What you will learn:

  • Programming computers using C, assembly language, and shell scripts
  • How to corrupt systems memory to run arbitrary code using buffer overflows and format strings
  • Inspecting processor registers and system memory with a debugger to understand the inner mechanism
  • How to outsmart common security measures like non-executable stacks and intrusion detection systems
  • Gaining access to a remote server using connect-back shellcode or port-binding, and alter a server's logging behavior to hide your presence
  • Redirecting network traffic, concealing open ports, and hijacking TCP connections
  • Cracking encrypted wireless traffic using the FMS attack, and speeding up brute-force attacks using a password probability matrix


The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing, Second Edition: Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Made Easy
Author: Patrick Engebretson
Published at: 15/08/2013
ISBN: 0124116442

If you want to learn Hacking from the very basic in an easy and friendly way, you can follow this book. It serves as an introduction to the steps required to complete a penetration test or perform an ethical hacking from beginning to ending.


What you will learn

  • Fundamentals of pen testing and the tools required to do so
  • Scanning a system to detect  weaknesses
  • Exploiting the system by attacking the weaknesses
  • Essentials of social engineering attacks
  • Web-based exploitation
  • Post exploitation and maintaining access to Backdoors, Rootkit, and Meterpreter
  • Wrapping up the penetration test


Rtfm: Red Team Field Manual
Author: Ben Clark
Published at: 11/02/2014
ISBN: 1494295504

This book is an excellent reference manual with common commands and charts frequently used by penetration testers. It is an effective and informative manual containing thousands of commands for Windows, Linux, Nmap, SQLMAP, VPN, Putty, Powershell, Google Hacking, Tunneling and lots more.


What you will learn:

  • Command lines for windows
  • Command lines for Linux
  • Useful tool syntax
  • Commands for web-based exploitation
  • Tricks for hacking databases
  • Basic programming hacks
  • Techniques for hacking wireless devices


Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
Author: David Kennedy,Jim O'gorman,Devon Kearns,Mati Aharoni
Published at: 15/07/2011
ISBN: 159327288X

The Metasploit Framework is a very handy tool to pentesters for discovering, exploiting, and sharing vulnerabilities in a quick and relatively painless way. Metasploit is a widely used tool for security professionals everywhere which makes it a bit hard to grasp for first-time users. But this book makes it easy for you by teaching you how to harness the framework and interact with the vibrant community of Metasploit contributors.


What you will learn

  • How to find and exploit corrupted systems
  • Performing reconnaissance to gather important information about your target
  • How to bypass anti-virus technologies and avoid security controls
  • Integrating Nmap, NeXpose, and Nessus with Metasploit to automate discovery
  • How to use the Meterpreter shell to launch further attacks from inside the network
  • Uses of harness standalone Metasploit utilities, third-party tools, and plugins
  • How to write Meterpreter post exploitation modules and scripts at your own


Black Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters
Author: Justin Seitz
Published at: 21/12/2014
ISBN: 1593275900

Most hackers choose Python for creating powerful and effective Hacking tools. This book teaches you Python programming to make such tools for creating stealthy trojans, extending Burp-Suite, and escalating Windows privileges. It emphasizes more on black hat techniques like writing exploits and network sniffers, manipulating packets and infecting virtual machines.


What you will learn

  • Create a trojan command-and-control using GitHub
  • How to detect sandboxing and automate common malware tasks
  • Use creative process control for escalating Windows privileges
  • Retrieve password hashes and inject shellcode into a VM using offensive memory forensics tricks
  • How to extend the popular Burp Suite web-hacking tool
  • Perform a man-in-the-browser attack by abusing Windows COM automation
  • How to exfiltrate data from a network most sneakily


Hacking Exposed 7: Network Security Secrets and Solutions
Author: Stuart McClure,Joel Scambray,George Kurtz
Published at: 01/08/2012
ISBN: 0071780289

If you want to reinforce your system security and defeat the tools and tactics of cyber-criminals, you should follow this book. It exposes the hackers latest devious methods and illustrates field-tested solutions.


You will learn how to

  • Detect and block APTs and web-based meta-exploits
  • Protect your system from UNIX-based root access and buffer overflow hacks
  • Secure your password by blocking SQL injection, spear phishing, and embedded-code attacks
  • Defend against rootkits, Trojans, bots, worms, and malware
  • Use smart cards and hardware tokens for locking down remote access
  • Plug holes in VoIP, social networking, cloud, and Web 2.0 services
  • Detect the latest iPhone and Android attacks and protect your device


CEH Certified Ethical Hacker Bundle, Third Edition (All-in-One)
Author: Matt Walker
Published at: 24/01/2017
ISBN: 125983753X

This integrated self-study book offers complete coverage of the EC Council's Certified Ethical Hacker v9 exam. It illustrates all of the tools, techniques, and exploits relevant to the CEH exam.


You will learn how to:

  • Gather information for ethical hacking
  • Identify targets and attack them
  • Attack web application and servers
  • Avoid the devices aligned against you
  • Break cloud computing security
  • Hack mobile platforms


Hacking: Ultimate Hacking for Beginners, How to Hack
Author: Andrew Mckinnon
Published at: 29/05/2015
ISBN: 1514125331
This comprehensive and easy-to-follow book is intended to help beginners understanding the fundamental concepts of hacking. It will teach you how to hack systems using simple tools and provide instructions on how to safely access the deep web and all its secrets.

What you will learn

  • The fundamentals of hacking
  • How to hack systems and networks
  • How to gather data, analyze and manipulate
  • Hacking different devices like webcam and mobile phones
  • Cracking passwords on different platforms
  • Penetration testing



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