Reddit mentions of The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers

He wrote a book a few years ago (2002) thats a fun read although not particularly informative. It largely focusses on social ngineering.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Controlling-Element-Security/dp/0471237124

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-Exploits-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/105-3743895-7466022 also in 2005.

The Art of Deception

The Art of Intrusion

I would second Ghost in the wire, though that is more of a autobiography. Still goes over some interesting stuff he did back in the day. He also helped write The Art of Deception and the Art of Intrusion

What most consider the original is actually titled:

• Hackers by Steven Levy
  
  More recently, there have been several excellent titles. My suggestion is stick to non fiction as it will truly scare the yell out of you.
  
  
• Kingpin by Kevin Paulsen
  
  
• Hackers and Hacking by Margaret Haerens
  
  
• Cyber War by Richard C Clarke
  
  
• Schneier on Security by Bruce Schneier ---
  Almost everything by Bruce
  
  
• The Art of Intrusion by Kevin Mitnick. He has a couple of books as you may know. The advantage is he offers the perspective of a "former" hacker.
  
  I can recommend more but these are good starting points. Fiction is fun but for pure terror, grasping what these authors are revealing is the key.

The Art of Intrusion is fun, if you know who Kevin Mitnick is.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Art-Intrusion-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661

Some search terms for how the internet works: Packet switched networking, TCP, IP, SSL.

I don't think I have ever read a book about basic internet workings, the internet is really the best place to read about that stuff (hence the search terms).

Instead I will list some books which look at how we define security and why secure systems fail:

Secrets and Lies is a good primer discussing trust / networks / cryptography and a few other things at a high enough level to be interesting to a lay reader: http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Lies-Digital-Security-Networked/dp/0471453803/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1419753343&sr=8-4

Art of Intrusion is packed full of stories about how systems (computers or otherwise) fail and become insecure: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-Exploits-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419753466&sr=8-1 the sister book Art of Deception (stories about Social Engineering) is also pretty good.

The Code Book, mostly history, but provides a great introduction to cryptographic concepts. http://www.amazon.com/The-Code-Book-Science-Cryptography/dp/0385495323/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_7_RTJS?ie=UTF8&refRID=1RRWWY0RNX7G8HRYPFFS

#1) Your business in real life is your business, no one elses, PERIOD. Notice I used BOLD because I mean it! You can absolutely only trust yourself with whatever you're studying, places like this are the best outlet to discuss. There are plenty of resources available detailing the accounts of people with similar interests being involved in situations they would prefer not to be in, simply because another person had knowledge of their interests.

#2) To add to #1, separating online identities is a great idea regardless of what you are doing. You can research this, but I have occasionally searched for users posting actives and have linked them IRL to identities which are pretty likely to be the actual person posting.

#3) Consider what you're searching for, what accounts you are signed into & what digital footprint is built around your interests with those accounts. Have you looked into things you'd rather not have been associated with your main gmail for example? Look into virtual machines, VPNs & depending on how paranoid you are, distributions of Linux which are privacy oriented (TAILS, WHONIX etc..) that you can find plenty of resources for online.

#4) Like /u/DJWonderful said - common sense is most important. This translates from online to offline, but really is often overlooked.

I'd be happy to detail any other considerations or answer any questions, but everything I know was learned through combing curious search results.

For some interesting reading material, might I suggest: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-Exploits-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661

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A very similar hack was documented in the Art of Intrusion. Lower-tech, but really cool read.

He has a really interesting book, it really divulges into the art of hacking and the process you go into when you are caught...

Books on project management, software development lifecycle, history of computing/programming, and other books on management/theory. It's hard to read about actual programming if you can't practice it.

Some of my favorites:

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software - GREAT choice I notice you already have listed. Possibly one of my favorite, and this should be on everyone's reading list who is involved in IT somehow. It basically how computers and programming evolved and gets you in a great way of thinking.
  
  
• The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography - Another great history book on code and how things came to be. It's more about crypto, but realistically computing's history is deeply rooted into security and crypto and ways to pass hidden messages.
  
  
• Software Project Survival Guide - It's a project management book that specifically explains it in terms of software development.
  
  
• The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers - A fun collection of short hacking stories compiled and narrated by Kevin Mitnick, one of the most infamous hackers. Actually, any of Mitnick's books are great. Theres a story in there about a guy who was in jail and learned to hack while in there and get all kind of special privileges with his skills.
  
  
• Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions - Most of the books in the "Beautiful" series are great and insightful. This is one of my more favorite ones.
  
  
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK(R) Guide - THE guide to project management from the group that certifies PMP... boring, dry, and great to help you get to sleep. But if you're committed enough, reading it inside and out can help you get a grasp or project management and potentially line you up to get certified (if you can get the sponsors and some experience to sit for the test). This is one of the only real certifications worth a damn, and it actually can be very valuable.
  
  You can't exactly learn to program without doing, but hopefully these books will give you good ideas on the theories and management to give you the best understanding when you get out. They should give you an approach many here don't have to realize that programming is just a tool to get to the end, and you can really know before you even touch any code how to best organize things.
  
  IF you have access to a computer and the internet, look into taking courses on Udacity, Coursera, and EDX. Don't go to or pay for any for-profit technical school no matter how enticing their marketing may tell you you'll be a CEO out of their program.

Can you program? If not, learn it! Start out with an easy to learn programming language like Pascal or Java and move on to the more complex C++ and eventually Assembler. Once you've understood the basics of programming (variables, loops, functions etc.) it is a matter of 2 weeks to learn the syntax of a new language.
Get familiar with Linux/UNIX. Learn how user rights work, how the run levels and shell scripts work. Read a lot of code and man pages. The definition of a hack is making a system do something it is not supposed to do. So you have to find a weak point by reverse engineering. Sometimes programmers make mistakes in their code, like a wrong variable type you can then exploit. Learn how a buffer overflow works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow Also I'd recommend these books: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Intrusion-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661 http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Nutshell-Ellen-Siever/dp/0596154488/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345626761&sr=1-1&keywords=o%27reilly+linux http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Absolute-Beginner-Experience-Technology/dp/1598633740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345626801&sr=1-1&keywords=learn+programming Have fun and good luck!

I'd recommend for social engineering specifically:

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-Exploits-Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0471782661

Phisphing as a concept isn't a very difficult one to grasp -

I'd say read the wiki's for it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

You're not looking for certification books, and the topic you chose is really vague. Cybersecurity encompasses all branches. The cloud? Development? Networking? Infrastructure?


This was one of the books I read during my Security studies.


The Art of Intrusion

I recommend the books "The Art of Intrusion" and "The Art of Deception" by Kevin Mitnik. One of the most famous hackers in history (the movie Hackers was inspired by him and Hackers 2: Takedown is a moderately historical adaptation of his escapades). The books gives a breakdown of what he did and what hacking is really like (in the 80s and 90s, at least). In short, its more research, reading, trial and error, and social engineering than actual typing.

What you're asking for is kind of silly.... Here's a series that's all about real theoretical attacks though. You're not going to find information on how to steal money from a bank, but you can read books from hackers who have done a lot of interesting things, like a group of friends who won nearly a million dollars in Las Vegas by reverse-engineering slot machines in Kevin Mitnick's book.