Black Hat Python is a clear winner in the field of books for security professionals. Written for people who want to move into the hacking and penetration testing fields and fully understand what they’re doing, this book will challenge readers to quickly come up to speed not just on how hackers work, but how to build their own tools. It contains plenty of examples that show exactly what one needs to do with code that builds on itself as you grow in skill, plus plenty of introductory material. Most chapters also include a “Kicking the Tires” section on putting the new tools to use. If you read this book cover-to-cover, you won’t come to the end of it without a deep understanding of how your systems work, why hacking is possible, and how you can build your own hacking and security testing tools with Python and add-on tools.
Just imagine yourself using Python for …
- doing network analysis
- writing your own sniffer
- manipulating packets
- infecting virtual machines
- going against application-layer targets
- writing stealthy trojans
- extending the popular Burp (security testing of web applications) Suite
- detecting sandboxing and automating keylogging screenshotting
- stealing email credentials and password hashes
- injecting shellcode into a virtual machines
- escalating your privileges on a Windows system
- performing ARP poisoning
- exfiltrating data
The book contains enough explanatory material and comments within the code that you will gain tremendous insight into what you can do with everything you will learn and some solid Python scripting know-how. I am definitely surprised at the level of expertise that has been provided in this book’s less than 200 pages. Even if you get to the end without building tools of your own, you’ll at least understand how others do that. And, if you work hard at following along, you’re bound to find that your skills and insight have improved dramatically.
While this is an amazing book with extremely valuable insights, I would not suggest it for anyone who has never programmed/scripted before. It’s also not one of those books that you can pick up and read a few pages when you want to find an answer to a troubling issue. Instead, it will take some amount of determined attention. To get the full benefit, you should jump in, set up your Kali Linux system as the book suggests, and follow the examples step by step. Even if you’ve been working in the information security field for years, you are likely to find that the experience will leave you with a deeper understanding than you ever imagined possible.
The author, Justin Seitz, is a senior security researcher for Immunity, Inc. and obviously knows his stuff. He is also the author of Gray Hat Python (no starch press, 2009).
If you’re truly interested in information security, Python is the language to learn and this book should be added to your library. And, by the way, you can download the code samples from the book if you go to the no starch press site www.nostarch.com/blackhatpython.
Here’s the Table of Contents in case you’re still not convinced you want this book.
1 Setting Up Your Python Environment
Installing Kali Linux
WingIDE
2 The Network: Basics
Python Networking in a Paragraph
TCP Client
UDP Client
TCP Server
Replacing Netcat
Kicking the Tires
Building a TCP Proxy
Kicking the Tires
SSH with Paramiko
Kicking the Tires
SSH Tunneling
Kicking the Tires
3 The Network: Raw Sockets and Sniffing
Building a UDP Host Discovery Tool
Packet Sniffing on Windows and Linux
Kicking the Tires
Decoding the IP Layer
Kicking the Tires
Decoding ICMP
Kicking the Tires
4 Owning the Network with Scapy
Stealing Email Credentials
Kicking the Tires
ARP Cache Poisoning with Scapy
Kicking the Tires
PCAP Processing
Kicking the Tires
5 Web Hackery
The Socket Library of the Web: urllib2
Mapping Open Source Web App Installations
Kicking the Tires
Brute-Forcing Directories and File Locations
Kicking the Tires
Brute-Forcing HTML Form Authentication
Kicking the Tires
6 Extending Burp Proxy
Setting Up
Burp Fuzzing
Kicking the Tires
Bing for Burp
Kicking the Tires
Turning Website Content into Password Gold
Kicking the Tires
7 GitHub Command and Control
Setting Up a GitHub Account
Creating Modules
Trojan Configuration
Building a GitHub-Aware Trojan
Hacking Python’s import Functionality
Kicking the Tires
8 Common Trojaning Tasks on Windows
Keylogging for Fun and Keystrokes
Kicking the Tires
Taking Screenshots
Pythonic Shellcode Execution
Kicking the Tires
Sandbox Detection
9 Fun with Internet Explorer
Man-in-the-Browser (Kind Of)
Creating the Server
Kicking the Tires
IE COM Automation for Exfiltration
Kicking the Tires
10 Windows Privilege Escalation
Installing the Prerequisites
Creating a Process Monitor
Process Monitoring with WMI
Kicking the Tires
Windows Token Privileges
Winning the Race
Kicking the Tires
Code Injection
Kicking the Tires
11 Automating Offensive Forensics
Installation
Profiles
Grabbing Password Hashes
Direct Code Injection
Kicking the Tires
Index
Whether you’re interested in becoming a serious hacker/penetration tester or just want to know how they work, this book is one you need to read. Intense, technically sound, and eye-opening, it could be a good investment in your professional development.
