BastianBallmann Understanding Network Hacks Attack and Defense with Python pdf 178 pages

Doesn’t this book explain how to break into a computer system? Isn’t that illegal

and a bad thing at all?

I would like to answer both questions with no (at least the second one).

Knowledge is never illegal nor something bad, but the things you do with it.

You as an admin, programmer, IT manager, or just an interested reader cannot

protect yourself if you don’t know the techniques of the attackers. You cannot test

the effectiveness of your firewalls and intrusion detection systems or other security,

related software if you are not able to see your IT infrastructure through the eyes of

an attacker. You cannot weigh up the danger to costs of possible security solutions

if you don’t know the risks of a successful attack. Therefore, it is necessary to

understand how attacks on computer networks really work.

The book presents a selection of possible attacks with short source code samples

to demonstrate how easy and effectively and maybe undetected a network can be

infiltrated. This way you can not only learn the real techniques but present them to

your manager or employer and help them in the decision if it would make sense to

care a little bit more about IT security. At the end of the book, you should be able

to not only understand how attacks on computer networks really work but also to

modify the examples to your own environment and your own needs.

Sure, the book also tells those bad guys how to crack the net and write their own

tools, but IT security is a sword with two sharp blades. Both sides feed themselves

off the same pot of knowledge, and it is a continuous battle, which the protecting

side can never dream of winning if it censors itself or criminalizes their knowledge!