// Comparison
Black Hat Python vs Hacking et Forensic: Which Should You Read?
Two cybersecurity books on Offensive, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.
Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters
Justin Seitz, Tim Arnold
Justin Seitz and Tim Arnold's hands-on tour of writing offensive tooling in Python: network sniffers, web scrapers, GitHub-based command-and-control, screen capture, keylogging, and Volatility extensions.
Développez vos propres outils en Python
Franck Ebel, Jérôme Hennecart
A hands-on French guide to building your own offensive and forensic tools in Python — networking, packet crafting, web and forensic scripting — for people who'd rather write the tool than buy it.
Read this if
Skip this if
Key takeaways
- Most operational tools you use can be replaced by ~50 lines of Python that do exactly what you need; the book is a series of working examples of that thesis.
- The networking, web-scraping and process-injection chapters individually pay back the cost of the book once you've used the patterns three times.
- The 2nd edition (Python 3, modern libraries) is the one to buy; the first edition's Python 2 code is dated.
- One of the few French books that teaches security by having you build the tools, not just run them.
- Python-centric and practical: networking, packet manipulation, web and forensic scripting from scratch.
- Best for the reader who already codes a little and wants to turn that into custom offensive/forensic capability.
How they compare
Black Hat Python and Hacking et Forensic are both rated 4/5 in our catalog. Pick by topic preference and reading style rather than by rating.
Both books target intermediate-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.
Black Hat Python and Hacking et Forensic both cover Offensive, Tooling, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.