There are countless Penetration Testing courses, tutorials, articles available online, but for some, having a book is still a necessity to learn. This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
- Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking (2014)
- Advanced Penetration Testing: Hacking the World’s Most Secure Networks (2017)
- The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing: Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Made Easy (2013)
- Mastering Kali Linux for Advanced Penetration Testing: Secure your network with Kali Linux 2019.1 – the ultimate white hat hackers’ toolkit, 3rd Edition (2019)
- Physical Red Team Operations: Physical Penetration Testing with the REDTEAMOPSEC Methodology (2019)
- The Hacker Playbook 3: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing (2018)
- Real-World Bug Hunting: A Field Guide to Web Hacking (2019)
- Penetration Testing Fundamentals: A Hands-On Guide to Reliable Security Audits (Pearson IT Cybersecurity Curriculum (ITCC)) (2018)
- Learn Ethical Hacking from Scratch: Your stepping stone to penetration testing (2018)
- Learning Kali Linux: Security Testing, Penetration Testing, and Ethical Hacking (2018)
- Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux: Set up a virtual lab and pentest major AWS services, including EC2, S3, Lambda, and CloudFormation (2019)
- Penetration Testing Essentials (2016)
- Related YouTube Video
Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking (2014)
Penetration testers simulate cyber attacks to find security weaknesses in networks, operating systems, and applications. Information security experts worldwide use penetration techniques to evaluate enterprise defenses.In Penetration Testing, security expert, researcher, and trainer Georgia Weidman introduces you to the core skills and techniques that every pentester needs.
Advanced Penetration Testing: Hacking the World’s Most Secure Networks (2017)
Advanced Penetration Testing: Hacking the World’s Most Secure Networks takes hacking far beyond Kali linux and Metasploit to provide a more complex attack simulation. Featuring techniques not taught in any certification prep or covered by common defensive scanners, this book integrates social engineering, programming, and vulnerability exploits into a multidisciplinary approach for targeting and compromising high security environments.
The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing: Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Made Easy (2013)
The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing, Second Edition, serves as an introduction to the steps required to complete a penetration test or perform an ethical hack from beginning to end. The book teaches students how to properly utilize and interpret the results of the modern-day hacking tools required to complete a penetration test.
Mastering Kali Linux for Advanced Penetration Testing: Secure your network with Kali Linux 2019.1 – the ultimate white hat hackers’ toolkit, 3rd Edition (2019)
Kali Linux, a successor to BackTrack, is one of the most popular Linux distributions used by security professionals and penetration testers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the target environment.As a tester or security practitioner, you’ll be taken through the reconnaissance, vulnerability assessment, exploitation, privilege escalation, and post-exploitation activities used by pentesters.
Physical Red Team Operations: Physical Penetration Testing with the REDTEAMOPSEC Methodology (2019)
A manual for the very first physical red team operation methodology, REDTEAMOPSEC. This book teaches how to execute every stage of a physical red team operation from reconnaissance to team mobilization, to offensive strike, and exfiltration.
The Hacker Playbook 3: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing (2018)
Back for the third season, The Hacker Playbook 3 (THP3) takes your offensive game to the pro tier. With a combination of new strategies, attacks, exploits, tips and tricks, you will be able to put yourself in the center of the action toward victory. The main purpose of this book is to answer questions as to why things are still broken.
Real-World Bug Hunting: A Field Guide to Web Hacking (2019)
Real-World Bug Hunting is the premier field guide to finding software bugs. Whether you’re a cyber-security beginner who wants to make the internet safer or a seasoned developer who wants to write secure code, ethical hacker Peter Yaworski will show you how it’s done. You’ll learn about the most common types of bugs like cross-site scripting, insecure direct object references, and server-side request forgery.
Penetration Testing Fundamentals: A Hands-On Guide to Reliable Security Audits (Pearson IT Cybersecurity Curriculum (ITCC)) (2018)
The perfect introduction to pen testing for all IT professionals and students · Clearly explains key concepts, terminology, challenges, tools, and skills · Covers the latest penetration testing standards from NSA, PCI, and NIST Welcome to today’s most useful and practical introduction to penetration testing.
Learn Ethical Hacking from Scratch: Your stepping stone to penetration testing (2018)
This book starts with the basics of ethical hacking, how to practice hacking safely and legally, and how to install and interact with Kali Linux and the Linux terminal. You will explore network hacking, where you will see how to test the security of wired and wireless networks.
Learning Kali Linux: Security Testing, Penetration Testing, and Ethical Hacking (2018)
With more than 600 security tools in its arsenal, the Kali Linux distribution can be overwhelming. Experienced and aspiring security professionals alike may find it challenging to select the most appropriate tool for conducting a given test. This practical book covers Kali’s expansive security capabilities and helps you identify the tools you need to conduct a wide range of security tests and penetration tests.
Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux: Set up a virtual lab and pentest major AWS services, including EC2, S3, Lambda, and CloudFormation (2019)
The cloud is taking over the IT industry. Any organization housing a large amount of data or a large infrastructure has started moving cloud-ward ― and AWS rules the roost when it comes to cloud service providers, with its closest competitor having less than half of its market share. This highlights the importance of security on the cloud, especially on AWS.
Penetration Testing Essentials (2016)
Penetration Testing Essentials provides a starting place for professionals and beginners looking to learn more about penetration testing for cybersecurity. Certification eligibility requires work experience—but before you get that experience, you need a basic understanding of the technical and behavioral ways attackers compromise security, and the tools and techniques you’ll use to discover the weak spots before others do.
Best Penetration Testing Books You Should Enjoy
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some penetration testing books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Kali Linux Hacking: A Complete Step by Step Guide to Learn the Fundamentals of Cyber Security, Hacking, and Penetration Testing. Includes Valuable Basic Networking Concepts
Author(s): Ethem Mining
ID: 2451912, Publisher: Independently published, Year: 6 Dec 2019, Size: 3 Mb, Format: epub
Computer Hacking Beginners Guide - How to Hack Wireless Network, Basic Security and Penetration Testing, Kali Linux, Your First Hack
Author(s): Alan T. Norman
ID: 2494532, Publisher: Independently published, Year: 24. Februar 20, Size: 6 Mb, Format: pdf
The Ultimate Kali Linux Book: Perform advanced penetration testing using Nmap, Metasploit, Aircrack-ng, and Empire, 2nd Edition
Author(s): Glen D. Singh
ID: 3220572, Publisher: Packt Publishing, Year: 2022, Size: 74 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not definite. Some books are absolutely hot items according to Los Angeles Times, others are drafted by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.