// 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
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 Gray03 · 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 Hunt04 · 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.
Beginner4/5OccupyTheWeb05 · 2009
Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications
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.
Advanced5/5Éric Filiol06 · 2005
Silence on the Wire
Michal Zalewski's classic on the indirect attack surface: timing channels, protocol-stack fingerprinting, and the often-overlooked side data leaked by every layer of a stack.
Advanced5/5Michal Zalewski07 · 2021
How Cybersecurity Really Works
Sam Grubb's gentle, exercise-driven introduction for non-specialists who need a working mental model of attacker behaviour and basic defence.
Beginner4/5Sam Grubb08 · 2020
Alice and Bob Learn Application Security
Tanya Janca's hands-on AppSec primer covering threat modeling, secure design, secure coding, testing, deployment, and the social side of running an AppSec program — through a friendly, narrative-driven structure.
Beginner4/5Tanya Janca09 · 2019
Foundations of Information Security
Jason Andress' compact tour of the field: confidentiality / integrity / availability, identification and authentication, network and OS controls, written for newcomers and adjacent disciplines.
Beginner4/5Jason Andress10 · 2018
Click Here to Kill Everybody
Bruce Schneier's policy-level argument that as everything becomes a computer (cars, medical devices, infrastructure, voting), the security failures that used to merely cost us money will start costing lives — and the regulatory shape of that future is being decided now.
Beginner4/5Bruce Schneier