// Alternatives
Alternatives to Understanding Cryptography
Books in our catalog with overlapping topics and a similar reading level to Understanding Cryptography. If Understanding 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 · 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 Stern03 · 2015
Sécurité informatique
A rigorous academic course on the foundations of security — cryptography, authentication, access control — with corrected exercises, from a team of well-known French and Swiss cryptographers.
Advanced4/5Gildas Avoine, Pascal Junod, Philippe Oechslin, Sylvain Pasini04 · 2023
Exercices et problèmes de cryptographie
A rigorous problem book for learning cryptography — over 150 corrected exercises with course summaries, for L3/master/engineering students — by a French academic cryptographer.
Advanced3/5Damien Vergnaud05 · 2021
Real-World Cryptography
David Wong's hands-on tour of the cryptographic primitives, protocols and pitfalls that show up in actual production systems, with deliberate attention to TLS, Noise, modern AEAD, and post-quantum.
Intermediate5/5David Wong06 · 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 Ghernaouti07 · 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.”
Intermediate4/5ACISSI08 · 2018
Social Engineering
Christopher Hadnagy's broad procedural reference on social engineering as a discipline — recon, pretexting, elicitation, microexpressions, and the structured engagement model his consultancy operationalized.
Intermediate4/5Christopher Hadnagy09 · 2010
Cryptography Engineering
A working engineer's introduction to cryptography that takes implementation pitfalls more seriously than most.
Intermediate4/5Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier, Tadayoshi Kohno10 · 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 Eilam