After a busy start to the year, we were finally able to settle down and take a look at a new book. This time around, we’re looking at Go H*ck Yourself: A Simple Introduction to Cyber Attacks and Defense by Bryson Payne. The No Starch Press page describes the book as “an eye-opening, hands-on introduction to the world of hacking, from an award-winning cybersecurity coach.” In some ways, the book reminds me of a simplified version of Gray Hat Hacking: The Ethical Hacker’s Handbook, a book I used as a textbook for courses I taught about 10 years ago. I’m not sure that I could see myself using this book as a textbook for a college class, but I think this is an excellent book to hand to high school students and I want to discuss that a bit further before I jump into some of the team’s comments.

As I’ve discussed on here before, I love teaching. I’ve developed and taught multiple college courses over the years, I’ve taught programming to high school students, and I love the opportunity to speak to high school and college classes, even if I’m not teaching. One thing that I’ve found over the years is that students aren’t quite sure what to expect when they dive into cybersecurity. This is equally true for high school students and first year college students, many of whom are shocked when they dive into the actual curriculum. I think that this book could be the perfect book to start preparing individuals that are new to the field. This isn’t a book that you read and suddenly get yourself a job in the industry. It’s the book that you read because you want to introduce yourself to the topic and get your toes wet. This is (Read more...)