// What to read next
What to read after Tracers in the Dark
Where to go after Tracers in the Dark, picked from our catalog. The next step up from beginner level, weighted toward the topics this book covers.
01 · 2024
OSINT Techniques
Michael Bazzell's relentlessly updated technical manual for finding people, accounts, breach data, geolocation evidence, and online identifiers — the de facto reference of the modern OSINT field.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell02 · 2018
Open Source Intelligence Techniques and Tools
Hassan and Hijazi's pedagogical introduction to OSINT framed inside the broader intelligence cycle (collection → processing → analysis → dissemination) rather than around a specific toolchain.
Beginner3/5Nihad A. Hassan, Rami Hijazi03 · 2011
Kingpin
Kevin Poulsen's reconstruction of Max Butler's career — from white-hat consultant to running CardersMarket, the carding forum that consolidated the early-2000s underground — and the FBI investigation that finally took him down.
Beginner5/5Kevin Poulsen04 · 2014
Spam Nation
Brian Krebs's investigative deep-dive into the Russian-speaking pharma-spam economy of the late 2000s — the affiliate networks, the rivalries, and the people who ran them.
Beginner4/5Brian Krebs05 · 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 Kohnfelder06 · 2024
Extreme Privacy
Michael Bazzell's defender-side companion to OSINT Techniques: a step-by-step program for removing yourself from data brokers, public records, and the everyday surveillance economy without going off-grid.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell07 · 2008
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
A from-first-principles tour of low-level exploitation that still teaches the mindset two decades later.
Intermediate5/5Jon Erickson08 · 2012
Practical Malware Analysis
Still the gold standard textbook for static and dynamic malware analysis on Windows.
Intermediate5/5Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig