"HOW CYBERSECURITY REALLY WORKS" by Sam Grubb Review

"HOW CYBERSECURITY REALLY WORKS" by Sam Grubb Review

 

Today I just wanted to give an in-depth review of the book "How Cybersecurity Really Works: A Hands-On Guide for Total Beginners" by Sam Grubb published by No Starch Press. Who is this book for? What can I learn from this book? Should I read this book? These are all questions we'll be looking at in this review so let's get right into it. 

Who is this book for? Well it is pretty much right there in the title: "total beginners". Flash back to earlier this year I decided it was time to go back to college and I wanted to pursue a career worth while and landed on cybersecurity. Now prior to this I had no knowledge of what cybersecurity actually was beyond the idea that it was a field for hackers and dealt with computers... So I picked this book up because of the title mainly. It seemed really geared towards someone like myself who wants to start exploring the world of cyber security but didn't know where to start. Now after reading this book I will say that it gave me the very basic foundational knowledge of how cybersecurity works and gave me a good stepping stone to begin actually learning the fundamentals. 

Some of examples of things the book will go over is the difference between white hats vs black hats, how the internet works, methodology, very basic networking, different types of attacks, malware, password security, cloud attacks, and encryption. The thing the book does is give a very surface level introduction to these examples and gives you the basics of what you need to know before jumping right into the world of cybersecurity. 

The book did have some different exercises where you can use things you've learned in a practical setting however I personally did not see much of benefit to many of the exercises. There are some fun ones though like using Shodan and Encrypting/Hashing files but for the most part I found most of the exercises to be things I already knew how to do even though I was not coming from a strong technology background. 

Most of the information I learned in the book is all out there online for you to learn. You could easily learn the scope of this book on Youtube or other free training sources online which begs the question should you actually buy this book? After having bought and read this book I would say I was satisfied with what I was able to accomplish using the book and I believe it did give me a good foundation to start learning the fundamentals. What this book is not is a course to teach you how to become a cybersecurity professional. It is not going to explain to you how to go about getting certs or what you need to study to begin becoming proficient in the field. However, if you were like me at the beginning of my journey and never heard the term "white hat" or "black hat" or didn't the very basics of how computers worked and how that relates to security then this book will be helpful for you. If you're like me and you like to have something  tangible to actually learn something or you're just a regular person who has an interests in the basics of security then there's something you can get from this book. If you're someone who has been studying cybersecurity for a while or have already been through some online courses, started practicing on CTF/hacking challenges online, or feel like you already have the basics of this field then I would not recommend to waste your time on this book. 

In summary if you somehow have landed on this blog and have no idea what cybersecurity is or haven't started learning the fundamentals of the field yet then there is something for you in this book. If you've already started then don't waste your time. I believe the book was well put together and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I learned a lot and was able to use those things I learned and go even farther thanks to this book.