// Prerequisites
What to read before Understanding Cryptography
If Understanding Cryptography feels too steep at intermediate level, here is what to read first. Lighter books in the same topics that build the prerequisites this one assumes.
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 · 1999
The Code Book
A narrative history of cryptography from Caesar ciphers to public-key, told through the people and the wars that turned on broken codes. Still the best on-ramp to why crypto matters.
Beginner5/5Simon Singh03 · 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 · 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 Janca05 · 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 Schneier06 · 2021
Crypto Dictionary
Jean-Philippe Aumasson's alphabetical, opinionated reference on cryptographic terms, primitives, attacks and folklore. Snack-format companion to Serious Cryptography.
Beginner4/5Jean-Philippe Aumasson07 · 2023
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing
Five famous hacks used as a way into the deeper question of why software is insecure at all, written by a Yale law professor who learned to code to write it. More a history and theory of vulnerability than a how-to.
Beginner4/5Scott J. Shapiro08 · 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 Andress