// Prerequisites
What to read before The Mac Hacker's Handbook
If The Mac Hacker's Handbook feels too steep at advanced level, here is what to read first. Lighter books in the same topics that build the prerequisites this one assumes.
01 · 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 Eilam02 · 2011
The IDA Pro Book
Chris Eagle's deep manual on IDA Pro, the disassembler that defined a generation of reverse engineering. Useful even with Ghidra in the picture, since most malware-analysis literature still assumes IDA.
Intermediate4/5Chris Eagle03 · 2022
Gray Hat Hacking
A multi-author breadth-first reference covering the modern offensive landscape: web, binary, hardware, IoT, mobile, cloud, and adversarial ML — the closest thing in print to a single-volume snapshot of where offensive security is.
Advanced4/5Allen Harper, Ryan Linn, Stephen Sims, Michael Baucom, Daniel Fernandez, Huascar Tejeda, Moses Frost04 · 2022
The Art of Mac Malware, Volume 1
Patrick Wardle's deep dive on macOS malware analysis: persistence patterns, injection techniques, anti-analysis tricks, and the macOS-specific tooling needed to triage real samples.
Advanced4/5Patrick Wardle05 · 2012
Practical Malware Analysis
Still the gold standard textbook for static and dynamic malware analysis on Windows.
Intermediate5/5Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig06 · 2003
Hacking the Xbox
Andrew "bunnie" Huang on the original Xbox: hardware modding as the entry path into reverse engineering, plus a frank account of the legal fight that followed.
Intermediate4/5Andrew "bunnie" Huang07 · 2016
The Car Hacker's Handbook
Craig Smith's guide to automotive bus systems (CAN, LIN, FlexRay), ECUs, infotainment surfaces, and how to fuzz, trace and exploit modern vehicles.
Intermediate4/5Craig Smith08 · 2020
The Ghidra Book
The reference manual for the NSA's open-source disassembler, written by the author of The IDA Pro Book. Exhaustive on the tool, thinner on the craft of reversing itself.
Intermediate4/5Chris Eagle, Kara Nance