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The Hardware Hacking Handbook vs Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Reverse Engineering, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

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5/52021

The Hardware Hacking Handbook

Breaking Embedded Security with Hardware Attacks

Jasper van Woudenberg, Colin O'Flynn

Jasper van Woudenberg and Colin O'Flynn (NewAE / ChipWhisperer) on real hardware attacks: bus sniffing, fault injection, side-channel power analysis, and the lab work that turns a black box into a known target.

Advanced

5/52009

Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications

Éric Filiol

Éric Filiol's reference French-language treatment of computer virology. Formal theory, infection mechanisms, offensive and defensive applications, with academic rigor rare on the topic.

Read this if

Embedded and IoT security researchers ready to move past firmware-only work and pick up the soldering iron. Also the right book for offensive practitioners auditing devices where the chip is the threat model: hardware wallets, automotive ECUs, smart locks, set-top boxes.

French-reading security students, researchers, advanced malware analysts who want a formal treatment — French-language literature on the topic is thin.

Skip this if

Readers who only want to read about hardware hacking. The book assumes you will buy a logic analyzer, a ChipWhisperer or similar, and break a few dev boards; without lab time, the middle chapters become abstract.

Readers looking for a tooling manual or introduction. Filiol writes dense; algorithmic and systems fundamentals are required.

Key takeaways

Side-channel and fault-injection attacks are no longer exotic: with sub-$300 tooling, an attacker can pull keys from MCUs that ship in shipping products today.
Bus interception (UART, JTAG, SWD, SPI flash dumps) is the unglamorous workhorse of hardware research and pays for itself across nearly every target.
Threat modeling for hardware is fundamentally different from software: physical access changes the cost curve of every attack, and the chapters on adversary models reflect that.

Prix Roberval 2005 (higher-education category) — one of the few French cyber books awarded at that level.
Filiol is a former military cryptanalyst and ran ESAT then ESIEA's virology lab; academic sourcing is visible chapter by chapter.
The only French-language book that treats computer virology with university-textbook rigor.

How they compare

The Hardware Hacking Handbook and Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications are both rated 5/5 in our catalog. Pick by topic preference and reading style rather than by rating.

Both books target advanced-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.

The Hardware Hacking Handbook and Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications both cover Reverse Engineering, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

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