// Alternatives
Alternatives to Social Engineering
Books in our catalog with overlapping topics and a similar reading level to Social Engineering. If Social Engineering is the wrong fit at intermediate level, start here.
01 · 2002
The Art of Deception
Kevin Mitnick and William Simon's case-study collection of social-engineering attacks: PBX scams, helpdesk impersonation, dumpster-diving, the casual lies that sound true. The technology dates the book; the human side is timeless.
Beginner4/5Kevin Mitnick, William L. Simon02 · 2022
Cybersécurité
Solange Ghernaouti's broad academic survey of cybersecurity — risk analysis, governance, technical and legal dimensions — the standard French university reference, now in its 7th edition.
Intermediate4/5Solange Ghernaouti03 · 2022
Practical Social Engineering
Joe Gray's working manual for the social-engineering side of red team and threat intel: OSINT-driven recon, pretexting, phishing infrastructure, and the legal and ethical boundaries that separate professional work from criminal activity.
Intermediate4/5Joe Gray04 · 2022
Sécurité informatique - Ethical Hacking
The French-language reference for offensive security: a thick, lab-heavy tour of the attacker's toolkit, maintained across editions by the ACISSI collective under the motto “learn the attack to better defend.”
Intermediate4/5ACISSI05 · 1998
La science du secret
A lucid popular-science history of cryptography by Jacques Stern, one of France's most eminent cryptographers — from classical ciphers to public-key and the science of secrecy.
Intermediate4/5Jacques Stern06 · 2005
Reversing
The book that taught a generation how software actually looks once you strip away the source. Still the clearest on-ramp to thinking in assembly, even with dated tools.
Intermediate4/5Eldad Eilam07 · 2010
Understanding Cryptography
A genuinely teachable intro to modern cryptography that derives the math instead of hand-waving it, covering symmetric and public-key primitives without drowning you in proofs.
Intermediate4/5Christof Paar, Jan Pelzl08 · 2023
Cybercriminalité
Solange Ghernaouti's structured treatment of cybercrime — how it works, how to prevent it, how to respond — spanning technical, legal and organisational angles.
Intermediate3/5Solange Ghernaouti09 · 2019
The Pragmatic Programmer
Thomas and Hunt's career-defining set of practical heuristics for writing software professionally — orthogonality, broken-windows, DRY, tracer bullets, and the underlying argument that craftsmanship is a posture, not a process.
Beginner5/5David Thomas, Andrew Hunt10 · 2025
Linux Basics for Hackers
OccupyTheWeb's introduction to Linux from the angle that hackers and pentesters actually need it: shells, networking, scripting, and Kali tooling.
Beginner4/5OccupyTheWeb