Solutions Review finds the highest-rated books on security threats available on Amazon right now. You need to add these to your collection today.
Solutions Review frequently shares our finds for essential cybersecurity titles and books every InfoSec professional and IT security team should have on the shelf. Here’s one of our lists.
For this list, we wanted to zoom in on a specific branch of cybersecurity – Security Threats – and share the highest-rated titles on the subject. These highest-rated books qualify for this list by being about security threats and defense specifically and having a four-star rating on Amazon at minimum.
These books are intended for beginners and experts alike and are written by authors with proficiency and/or recognition in the field of cybersecurity.
The Highest-Rated Books on Security Threats
Book Title: Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking
Our Take: Christopher Hadnagy is the founder and CEO of Social-Engineer, LLC. In his sixteen years in the industry, he has written the world’s first social engineering–framework, created the first social engineering–based podcast and newsletter, and written four books on the topic.
Description: Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking reveals the craftier side of the hacker’s repertoire―why hack into something when you could just ask for access? Undetectable by firewalls and antivirus software, social engineering relies on human fault to gain access to sensitive spaces; in this book, renowned expert Christopher Hadnagy explains the most commonly-used techniques that fool even the most robust security personnel, and shows you how these techniques have been used in the past. This new Second Edition has been updated with the most current methods used by sharing stories, examples, and scientific study behind how those decisions are exploited.
Book Title: Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies: Learn to mitigate exploits, malware, phishing, and other social engineering attacks
Our Take: Tim Rains worked at Microsoft for the better part of two decades where he held a number of roles including Global Chief Security Advisor, Director of Security, Identity and Enterprise Mobility, and Director of Trustworthy Computing.
Description: Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies offers an unprecedented long-term view of the global threat landscape by examining the twenty-year trend in vulnerability disclosures and exploitation, nearly a decade of regional differences in malware infections, the socio-economic factors that underpin them, and how global malware has evolved. This will give you further perspectives into malware protection for your organization. It also examines internet-based threats that CISOs should be aware of.
Book Title: Phishing Dark Waters: The Offensive and Defensive Sides of Malicious Emails
Our Take: Another entry from Christopher Hadnagy, this book demonstrates malicious emails in full and best practices in your enterprise’s defense.
Description: Phishing Dark Waters addresses the growing and continuing scourge of phishing emails, and provides actionable defensive techniques and tools to help you steer clear of malicious emails. Phishing is analyzed from the viewpoint of human decision-making and the impact of deliberate influence and manipulation on the recipient. With expert guidance, this book provides insight into the financial, corporate espionage, nation-state, and identity theft goals of the attackers.
Book Title: Ransomware Revealed: A Beginner’s Guide to Protecting and Recovering from Ransomware Attacks
Our Take: Nihad A. Hassan is an independent information security consultant, digital forensics and cybersecurity expert, online blogger, and book author. He has been actively conducting research in different areas of information security for more than a decade.
Description: Despite the security controls set by organizations to protect their digital assets, ransomware is still dominating the world of security and will continue to do so in the future. Ransomware Revealed discusses the steps to follow if a ransomware infection occurs, such as how to pay the ransom through anonymous payment methods, perform a backup and restore your affected files, and search online to find a decryption tool to unlock (decrypt) your files for free. Mitigation steps are discussed in-depth for both endpoint devices and network systems.
Book Title: Ransomware: Defending Against Digital Extortion
Our Take: Allan Liska has more than 15 years experience in the world of cybersecurity. Mr. Liska has worked both as a security practitioner and an ethical hacker. Timothy Gallo has been working in IT security for the past 15 years.
Description: With this practical book, you’ll learn how easily ransomware infects your system and what steps you can take to stop the attack before it sets foot in the network. Security experts Allan Liska and Timothy Gallo explain how the success of these attacks has spawned not only several variants of ransomware but also a litany of ever-changing ways they’re delivered to targets. You’ll learn pragmatic methods for responding quickly to a ransomware attack, as well as how to protect yourself from becoming infected in the first place.
Book Title: The Art of Memory Forensics: Detecting Malware and Threats in Windows, Linux, and Mac Memory
Our Take: The authors of this work have in-depth experience in discussing and researching malware and digital forensics. That expertise comes through in the text.
Description: Beginning with introductory concepts and moving toward the advanced, The Art of Memory Forensics: Detecting Malware and Threats in Windows, Linux, and Mac Memory is based on a five-day training course that the authors have presented to hundreds of students. It is the only book on the market that focuses exclusively on memory forensics and how to deploy such techniques properly. Discover memory forensics techniques.
Book Title: The Secret to Cybersecurity: A Simple Plan to Protect Your Family and Business from Cybercrime
Our Take: Scott Augenbaum became the “cyber guy” in the FBI’s field office in Syracuse, New York, working almost exclusively on computer crime cases. That expertise proves invaluable.
Description: The Secret to Cybersecurity is the simple and straightforward plan to keep you, your family, and your business safe. Written by Scott Augenbaum, a 29-year veteran of the FBI who specialized in cyber-crimes, it uses real-life examples to educate and inform readers, explaining who/why/how so you’ll have a specific takeaway to put into action for your family. Learn about the scams, methods, and ways that cyber-criminals operate—and learn how to avoid being the next cyber victim.
Book Title: Practical IoT Hacking: The Definitive Guide to Attacking the Internet of Things
Our Take: All of the authors contribute their considerable expertise in cybersecurity to this book, which helps you reconceptualize threats to the IoT.
Description: Written by all-star security experts, Practical IoT Hacking is a quick-start conceptual guide to testing and exploiting IoT systems and devices. Drawing from the real-life exploits of five highly regarded IoT security researchers, Practical IoT Hacking teaches you how to test IoT systems, devices, and protocols to mitigate risk. The book begins by walking you through common threats and a threat modeling framework. You’ll develop a security testing methodology, discover the art of passive reconnaissance, and assess security on all layers of an IoT system. Next, you’ll perform VLAN hopping, crack MQTT authentication, abuse UPnP, develop an mDNS poisoner, and craft WS-Discovery attacks.
Book Title: The IoT Hacker’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Hacking the Internet of Things
Our Take: Aditya Gupta is the founder and CEO of Attify, Inc. – a specialized security firm offering IoT penetration testing and security training on IoT Exploitation.
Description: Take a practioner’s approach in analyzing the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the security issues facing an IoT architecture. You’ll review the architecture’s central components, from hardware communication interfaces, such as UART and SPI, to radio protocols, such as BLE or ZigBee. You’ll also learn to assess a device physically by opening it, looking at the PCB, and identifying the chipsets and interfaces. You’ll then use that information to gain entry to the device or to perform other actions, such as dumping encryption keys and firmware.
Those were our picks for the highest-rated books on security threats available on Amazon now. For more on enterprise cybersecurity, check out our Endpoint Security Buyer’s Guide.
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Ben Canner
Ben Canner is an enterprise technology writer and analyst covering Identity Management, SIEM, Endpoint Protection, and Cybersecurity writ large. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Clark University in Worcester, MA. He previously worked as a corporate blogger and ghost writer. You can reach him via Twitter and LinkedIn.
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