Cyber Security Books You Must Read in 2024

Are you interested in the field of cyber security and want to build your career in this field but need help knowing where to start or which cyber security books to refer to? Don’t worry; we got you covered. In this article, we will explore the top ten cyber security books that can help you to get started or enhance your skills related to cyber security.

But, before we begin to explore the top ten cyber security books, let’s first understand what cyber security is and the types of cyber security. So, cyber security is the technique of defending against malicious attacks on computer systems, data centers, portable devices, communications devices, networks, data, and so on. And there are six types of cyber security: Network security, Cloud security, Endpoint security, Mobile security, IoT security, and Application security.

You can also explore, these courses:

Ethical hacking courses	Cryptography online course
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Now, before we move to the main topic, i.e., cyber security books you must read in 2024, let’s go through the list of topics listed under the table of contents (TOC) that we will cover in this blog.

Table of contents (TOC)

• Cybersecurity For Beginners- Raef Meeuwisse
• Hacking for Beginners – Ramon Nastase
• The Art Of Invisibility – Kevin Mitnick
• Hacking: The Art of Exploitation – Jon Erickson
• Cyber Threat Hunting – Nadhem AlFardan
• Ethical Hacking – Daniel G. Graham
• Social Engineering – Christopher Hadnagy
• Applied Cryptography – Bruce Schneier
• Black Hat Python – Justin Seitz
• Practical Malware Analysis – Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig

Cybersecurity For Beginners- Raef Meeuwisse 

Raef Meeuwisse, the author, has multiple information security certifications and wrote the security control framework for a Fortune 20 company. The cybersecurity for beginners books was mainly created while keeping beginner candidates in mind.  

This is one of the cyber security books that provide easy insight into cybersecurity fundamentals even with no technical background. The book also includes an alphabetical section at the back to assist you in translating many of the most critical cybersecurity technical terms into plain or non-technical english.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹1600
Recommended level	Beginner
Number of pages	220

Hacking for Beginners – Ramon Nastase

Ramon Nastase is an IT professional with over 12 years of experience and a strong interest in IT&C (Programming, Linux, Servers, CyberSecurity, Ethical Hacking, and Computer Networking). He began his career at a young age and obtained well-known industry certifications.

This is one of the cyber security books that informs you how attackers think. After reading this book, you will understand the reason behind the attack and how they are doing it. You’ll also learn how they might inspect your system to gain access to a computer system.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹907
Recommended level	Beginner
Number of pages	138

The Art Of Invisibility – Kevin Mitnick

Kevin Mitnick, the world’s most famous hacker who is now a computer security consultant, has been the subject of numerous profiles published and broadcast around the world. This cyber security book he wrote teaches you how to stay anonymous online.

This cyber security book will teach you everything, including password protection and smart Wi-Fi usage, to advanced techniques for maximizing your anonymity. After reading this book, you can easily understand how security flaws can be utilized and how to avoid this from happening.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹874
Recommended level	Beginner and Intermediate
Number of pages	320

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation – Jon Erickson

The author, Jon Erickson, has academic training in computer science and has been hacking and coding since he was a young child. He is a frequent speaker at computer security conferences worldwide and works as a cryptologist and security expert in Northern California.

Author Jon Erickson’s book explains how arcane hacking techniques work. This second edition book teaches the C programming fundamentals from the perspective of a hacker. The book also includes a LiveCD with a comprehensive Linux programming and debugging environment. This book will teach you how to program computers in C, shell scripts, and assembly language.

You can also explore: Top 30 Shell Scripting Interview Questions and Answers

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹2915
Recommended level	Intermediate
Number of pages	488

Cyber Threat Hunting – Nadhem AlFardan 

Nadhem AlFardan, the author, has over 15 years of experience in information security and a Ph.D. in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London. His work required him to collaborate with organizations such as Google, Microsoft, and others, primarily to assist them in assessing and correcting major TLS/SSL protocol flaws.

You can also explore: Difference Between SSL and TLS

He wrote this book to teach you how to design and implement a cyber threat-hunting framework, conduct threat-hunting expeditions, use statistics and machine learning techniques for hunting for threats, and other essential concepts.

To get the most out of the book, you should have a basic understanding of and experience with security controls, types of operating systems, networking concepts, and searching data stores.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹6000
Recommended level	Intermediate
Number of pages	315

Ethical Hacking – Daniel G. Graham

Daniel G. Graham is a computer science assistant professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has published in IEEE sensors and networks journals.

His book can be thought of as a crash course in modern hacking techniques. This book teaches readers how to deploy the Metasploit framework’s reverse shells and embed them in innocent-looking files, install Linux rootkits that modify a victim’s operating system, encrypt files by writing your ransomware in Python, and so on. In summary, this book teaches what ethical hacking is and other essential topics, as well as how to do it.

You can also explore: What is Pyhton?

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹2000
Recommended level	Intermediate
Number of pages	376

Social Engineering – Christopher Hadnagy

Christopher Hadnagy is the CEO and Chief Human Hacker of Social-Engineer and the founder and creator of the DEF CON and DerbyCon Social Engineering Village. He has spoken and taught about social engineering worldwide, including at the Pentagon and other high-security facilities.

He wrote this book to teach the most commonly used techniques that fool even the most seasoned security personnel and show you how these techniques have been used in the past.

This book also teaches you how to recognize, predict, and avoid social engineering by taking you inside the social engineer’s toolbox. In summary, this book discusses one of the most essential terms in cyber security, i.e., social engineering.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹2807
Recommended level	Intermediate
Number of pages	320

Applied Cryptography – Bruce Schneier

The Economist has dubbed security technologist Bruce Schneier a “security guru.” He is the author of twelve books, and his influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram” and blog “Schneier on Security” are read by over 250,000 people.

This cyber security book, written by him, thoroughly examines modern cryptography. This book also covers essential cryptography topics, such as how programmers and electronic communications professionals can use cryptography to protect computer data privacy.

The book also discusses various cryptography algorithms and provides practical advice on implementing them in cryptographic software or solving security problems.

You can also explore: What are Different Types of Cryptography?

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹4981
Recommended level	Expert
Number of pages	729

Black Hat Python – Justin Seitz 

Justin Seitz works for Immunity, Inc. as a Senior Security Researcher, where he spends his time bug hunting, reverse engineering, writing exploits, and coding Python. He wrote Gray Hat Python, the first book about using Python for security analysis.

This book, written by him, teaches you about Python’s darker side, such as writing network sniffers, infecting virtual machines, creating stealthy trojans, manipulating packets, and more.

You can also learn how to use GitHub to create a trojan command-and-control, identify sandboxing and optimize types of malware tasks, upgrade windows privileges with creative process control, and so on. To fully understand this book, you must have a basic understanding of the Python programming language.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹2148
Recommended level	Expert
Number of pages	192

Practical Malware Analysis – Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig

Michael Sikorski works at Mandiant as a malware analyst, researcher, and security consultant. He regularly teaches malware analysis to various groups, such as the FBI and Black Hat. Andrew Honig is a Department of Defense Information Assurance Expert who focuses on teaching courses on software analysis, windows system programming, and reverse engineering.

This book will teach you the tools and techniques that professional analysts use to safely analyze, debug, and disassemble malicious software. This book also teaches you how to set up a secure virtual environment for malware analysis, instantly retrieve network signatures and host-based indicators, and develop a method for unpacking malware and various other essential topics.

Here’s some extra information regarding the book:

Price	₹3933
Recommended level	Expert
Number of pages	800

Conclusion

The books mentioned above were chosen based on popularity, number of sales, prose, the author’s experience in cybersecurity, and various other factors. We have also divided the books as per beginner, intermediate, and expert levels so that candidates can read them according to their needs.