// Alternatives
Alternatives to Real-World Cryptography
Books in our catalog with overlapping topics and a similar reading level to Real-World Cryptography. If Real-World Cryptography is the wrong fit at intermediate level, start here.
01 · 2024
Serious Cryptography
Jean-Philippe Aumasson's working introduction to modern cryptography, written for engineers who need both intuition and enough mathematical depth to evaluate the choices a library is making for them.
Intermediate5/5Jean-Philippe Aumasson02 · 2010
Cryptography Engineering
A working engineer's introduction to cryptography that takes implementation pitfalls more seriously than most.
Intermediate4/5Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier, Tadayoshi Kohno03 · 2021
Designing Secure Software
Loren Kohnfelder, the original PKI author, on how to weave security thinking through requirements, design, implementation and operations rather than bolt it on at the end.
Intermediate5/5Loren Kohnfelder04 · 2014
Threat Modeling
Adam Shostack's practitioner-oriented introduction to threat modeling: STRIDE, attack trees, and how to fit the practice into a real software-development lifecycle.
Intermediate5/5Adam Shostack05 · 2023
Black Hat GraphQL
Aleks and Farhi on attacking GraphQL specifically: introspection abuse, batching, depth and complexity attacks, auth flaws, and the differences from REST that make GraphQL pentests their own discipline.
Intermediate4/5Nick Aleks, Dolev Farhi06 · 2022
Hacking APIs
Corey Ball's structured approach to attacking REST and GraphQL APIs: enumeration, auth flaws, business logic, mass assignment, and the testing harness around them.
Intermediate4/5Corey J. Ball07 · 2011
The Web Application Hacker's Handbook
The exhaustive reference for web app pentesting, comprehensive but increasingly a historical document.
Intermediate4/5Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto08 · 2016
iOS Application Security
David Thiel on attacking and defending iOS apps: the platform sandbox, IPC surfaces, keychain semantics, transport security, and the patterns that introduce real bugs.
Intermediate3/5David Thiel09 · 2015
The Mobile Application Hacker's Handbook
Chell, Erasmus, Colley, and Whitehouse's reference on iOS and Android application security from the early-mid 2010s — runtime hooking, transport security, IPC abuse, and the platform-specific surface of mobile pentesting.
Intermediate3/5Dominic Chell, Tyrone Erasmus, Shaun Colley, Ollie Whitehouse10 · 2020
Security Engineering
Ross Anderson's comprehensive textbook on the design of secure systems, covering protocols, access control, side channels, economics of security, and policy.
Advanced5/5Ross Anderson