I believe it comes without saying that in any field of work professionals need to be up to date to what is new in the market, especially in fields where everything changes in a matter of days or hours. This is especially true for IT and Cyber Security in general where and old information can mean the difference between a secure and a hacked system, a successful or unsuccessful pentest/hack.
This is especially true if you are are a beginner willing to learn the intrusive security field, and doesn’t know where to start.
One of the best ways to stay in touch with what is new in the market and also recycle your own knowledge and learn new things are security related magazines. There are literaly hundreds of them around focusing on different fields, writen in different languages, and nobody has the time to read them all, therefore for the sake of this blog, I’ve posted some very interesting and pertinent ones in Penetration Testing and other intrusive security fields.
So, prepare a good coffee, sit on a comfortable chair, boot your hacking vms, and let’s start reading:
Title: Hakin9 Magazine
URL: https://hakin9.org/
Orientation: Hacking, Pentesting, Intrusive Security in General
Frequency: Monthly
Price: Paid (also some free issues and articles)
Description: This is one of my favorite magazines, and I even published some articles published there. It is technical and content vary from news, comments and info on security books and conferences, to highly technical articles and guides about security software. They issue the magazine in English (and i believe in Czech as well). They also issues some free issues now and then. They also used to have sub editions on different subjects such as Exploiting Software, On Demand, Extra, Mobile Security, but they are not doing it anymore as they choose to consolidate all other cyber security subjects in their major issue. They have a very good Beta Tester program in which beta testers can read and review content that will potentially make into the next issue. This is a very good way to help the security community and getting free up to date information as well. The subscription is not cheap by the market’s standards, but it is worth, especially if you have your company to pay for it for your department. It can be issue either as a printed version or PDF file. Of course you can find it in a torrent or some other places in the internet easily as it is a well-known magazine, but please, be a good person and get a proper subscription. Also, after subscription you also have access to all their previous issues.
Title: Pentest Magazine
URL: https://pentestmag.com/
Orientation: Hacking, Pentesting, Intrusive Security in General
Frequency: Monthly
Price: Paid (also some Free issues and articles)
Description: This is also one of my favorite magazines, they are published by the same group as Hakin9 Magazine. It is a lot more technical than Hakin9 magazine as it goes a lot deeper into penetration testing and intrusive techniques. The magazine is issued in English. They also have a few free magazines and articles now and then. It also works on a subscription basis being issued to the reader either printed or in PDF format.
I would say that if you are a pentester or work on any spectrum of intrusive security, this is the go to magazine for you to learn new stuff, and get deeper on what you already know.
The same beta tester program applies here so beta testers can review and correct the articles that are submited to be part of the next issue.
Like Hakin9 magazine, they used to issue different sub editions on different subjects such as WebApp Pentesting, Pentest Market, Auditing & Standards, but now they consolidate everything into just their major issue.
Title: INSecure Magazine
URL: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/insecuremag
Orientation: DevOps, Hacking, Pentesting, Security in General
Frequency: Monthly or every Three Months
Price: Free
Description: (IN)Secure Magazine is yet another good magazine but focused more on General Security related subjects. It has loads of different articles such as world news, hacking, security advisory, security CEO information, virus and other stuff.
This is not a highly technical magazine, which is great for beginners willing to take their first steps on the security field.
Title: Phrack Magazine
URL: http://www.phrack.org/
Orientation: DevOps, Hacking, Pentesting, Engineering and Geek stuff
Frequency: When they are willing to do so 😉
Price: Free
Description: This is one of my utmost favorite magazines. It’s been around for a long time. This is considered a highly technical magazine, with many different articles not only involving heads deep into pentesting, and reverse engineering, but other articles related to geek stuff. I absolutely love this magazine. The last time they released issue 69 was in 2016, prior to that issue 68 was 2012, but when they decide to do it, i rush to read it in full.
Title: 2600 The Hacker Quarterly
URL: https://www.2600.com/
Orientation: Hacking and Geek Stuff
Frequency: Quarterly
Price: Paid (printed issue)
Description: Just like Phrack, this is an amazing magazine. They’ve been around forever, since 1984, and they were always a very good source of information for cyber security and other subjects.
The magazine is paid for printed, PDF and EPUB formats, but issues are not at all expensive, ranging around USD$ 9.99, you can have all numbers for specific years, and you can also get a full set from 1984 till the current year.
Title: HITBMag (Hack in the Box Magazine)
URL: https://magazine.hitb.org/
Orientation: Latest Hacks and Exploits, In-depth Technical Analysis, Techniques, Tools and general InfoSec trends
Frequency: Quaterly
Price: Free
Description: This is yet another very good magazine, and the best of it, distributed for free in Low and High resolution PDF format. Their motto is “Keeping Knowledge Free”. HITBMag is focused on Latest Hacks and Exploits, In-depth Reports and Technical Analysis, Deep dive on New Techniques and general InfoSec trends.
Title: Hackercool Magazine
URL: https://www.hackercoolmagazine.com/
Orientation: Hacking in general
Frequency: Montly
Price: Paid
Description: Another cool magazine, hence the name. They have been around since 2016, the magazine deals with everything hacking related, from vulnerabilities to exploits and good how-to articles, and also for generaly cyber security subjects.
The issues price are not expensive at all, around USD$ 4,99 each issue.
Of course there are loads of other security magazines out there in different language and dealing with other aspects of cyber security, but this list represents the ones I personally recommend for Intrusive Security professionals.
I hope you have a very good time reading them. See you on the next post!