The Art of Memory Forensics

What Hacker News says

1. phausOct 2017
   His comment was excellent, but I kind of disagree with his comment on The Art of Memory Forensics.

   Its basically a book about learning to use volatility to perform memory forensics. If you want to do that, its one of the best ways to learn. However, if you want a more general, non-tool based approach to the concepts (rather than performing memory forensics), perhaps his other suggestions are better sources.

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2. alltakendamnedJul 2017
   While I agree with most of your comment, I think The Art of Memory Forensics is an absolute must read for the people that want to do digital forensics. Or attackers worrying about the footprint they leave behind...

   The Art of Software Security Assessment is a great book, but it's on a totally different topic and there's zero comparison between these two.

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3. dsaccoJul 2017
   So, I've read most of these. Here's a tour of what is definitely useful and what you should probably avoid.

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   Do Read:

   1. The Web Application Hacker's Handbook - It's beginning to show its age, but this is still absolutely the first book I'd point anyone to for learning practical application security.

   2. Practical Reverse Engineering - Yep, this is great. As the title implies, it's a good practical guide and will teach many of the "heavy" skills instead of just a platform-specific book targeted to something like iOS. Maybe supplement with a tool-specific book like The IDA Pro Book.

   3. Security Engineering - You can probably read either this or The Art of Software Security Assessment. Both of these are old books, but the core principles are timeless. You absolutely should read one of these, because they are like The Art of Computer Programming for security. Everyone says they have read them, they definitely should read them, and it's evident that almost no one has actually read them.

   4. Shellcoder's Handbook - If exploit development if your thing, this will be useful. Use it as a follow-on from a good reverse engineering book.

   5. Cryptography Engineering - The first and only book you'll really need to understand how cryptography works if you're a developer. If you want to make cryptography a career, you'll need more; this is still the first book basically anyone should pick up to understand a wide breadth of modern crypto.

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   You Can Skip:

   1. Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking - It was okay. I am biased against books that don't have a great deal of technical depth. You can learn a lot of this book by reading online resources and by honestly having common sense. A lot of this book is infosec porn, i.e. "Wow I can't believe that happened." It's not a bad book, per se, it's just not particularly helpful for a lot of technical security. If it interests you, read it; if it doesn't, skip it.

   2. The Art of Memory Forensics - Instead of reading this, consider reading The Art of Software Security Assessment (a more rigorous coverage) or Practical Malware Analysis.

   3. The Art of Deception - See above for Social Engineering.

   4. Applied Cryptography - Cryptography Engineering supersedes this and makes it obsolete, full stop.

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   What's Not Listed That You Should Consider:

   1. Gray Hat Python - In which you are taught to write debuggers, a skill which is a rite of passage for reverse engineering and much of blackbox security analysis.

   2. The Art of Software Security Assessment - In which you are taught to find CVEs in rigorous depth. Supplement with resources from the 2010s era.

   3. The IDA Pro Book - If you do any significant amount of reverse engineering, you will most likely use IDA Pro (although tools like Hopper are maturing fast). This is the book you'll want to pick up after getting your IDA Pro license.

   4. Practical Malware Analysis - Probably the best single book on malware analysis outside of dedicated reverse engineering manuals. This one will take you about as far as any book reasonably can; beyond that you'll need to practice and read walkthroughs from e.g. The Project Zero team and HackerOne Internet Bug Bounty reports.

   5. The Tangled Web - Written by Michal Zalewski, Director of Security at Google and author of afl-fuzz. This is the book to read alongside The Web Application Hacker's Handbook. Unlike many of the other books listed here it is a practical defensive book, and it's very actionable. Web developers who want to protect their applications without learning enough to become security consultants should start here.

   6. The Mobile Application Hacker's Handbook - The book you'll read after The Web Application Hacker's Handbook to learn about the application security nuances of iOS and Android as opposed to web applications.

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