// Prerequisites
What to read before Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations
If Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations feels too steep at beginner level, here is what to read first. Lighter books in the same topics that build the prerequisites this one assumes.
01 · 2018
Open Source Intelligence Techniques and Tools
Hassan and Hijazi's pedagogical introduction to OSINT framed inside the broader intelligence cycle (collection → processing → analysis → dissemination) rather than around a specific toolchain.
Beginner3/5Nihad A. Hassan, Rami Hijazi02 · 2019
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden's first-person memoir: the technical work that led him into the NSA's mass-surveillance programs, his reasoning for disclosure, and the Hong Kong handoff to the journalists who broke the story.
Beginner4/5Edward Snowden03 · 2024
Extreme Privacy
Michael Bazzell's defender-side companion to OSINT Techniques: a step-by-step program for removing yourself from data brokers, public records, and the everyday surveillance economy without going off-grid.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell04 · 2024
OSINT Techniques
Michael Bazzell's relentlessly updated technical manual for finding people, accounts, breach data, geolocation evidence, and online identifiers — the de facto reference of the modern OSINT field.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell05 · 2014
Countdown to Zero Day
Kim Zetter's investigative reconstruction of Stuxnet, the joint US/Israeli operation that physically damaged Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuges via a worm, and what its discovery revealed about state-level cyber capability.
Beginner5/5Kim Zetter06 · 2011
Kingpin
Kevin Poulsen's reconstruction of Max Butler's career — from white-hat consultant to running CardersMarket, the carding forum that consolidated the early-2000s underground — and the FBI investigation that finally took him down.
Beginner5/5Kevin Poulsen07 · 2019
Sandworm
Long-form journalism on the GRU's hacking operations, the best non-technical book on what state-level cyber actually looks like.
Beginner5/5Andy Greenberg08 · 1989
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll's first-person account of investigating a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at LBNL that turned into a year-long pursuit of a KGB-paid intruder across early-internet networks.
Beginner5/5Clifford Stoll