Offensive and Defensive Hacking in Action: Master Real-World Cyber Attacks, Exploits, and Ethical Countermeasures

Offensive and Defensive Hacking in Action: Master Real-World Cyber Attacks, Exploits, and Ethical Countermeasures Offensive and Defensive Hacking in Action is a comprehensive, practical guide that equips you with the full-spectrum skillset to operate effectively on both sides of the cybersecurity battlefield. Whether you're launching a controlled offensive engagement or building defenses to stop advanced threats, this book walks you through real-world attack techniques and the professional-grade countermeasures used to detect, prevent, and respond to them. With a focus on hands-on application, you'll learn how modern attacks unfold-from passive recon and network scanning to exploit delivery, privilege escalation, persistence, and post-exploitation control. Every offensive technique is paired with a corresponding defensive strategy, including logging, monitoring, detection engineering, and forensic analysis. Inside, you'll master tools like Nmap, Metasploit, theHarvester, Burp Suite, Mimikatz, Cobalt Strike, ELK Stack, Wazuh, Splunk, and more. You'll gain a deep understanding of how vulnerabilities are exploited, how payloads evade detection, and how blue teams trace activity, respond to incidents, and reconstruct attack chains. Each chapter is structured around real tactics used by threat actors and the workflows adopted by security professionals to counter them. From exploiting CVEs to building detection use cases, the content is designed to mirror real-world engagements in both offensive security and incident response roles. You'll come away with the ability to: Execute professional penetration tests and simulate adversary campaigns Analyze system logs, correlate indicators, and trace attack trails Harden systems against privilege escalation, malware, and network-based attacks Build and test detection rules using SIEM and EDR solutions Communicate technical findings clearly to technical and executive stakeholders This is not just a book about hacking techniques-it's a complete manual for thinking like an attacker and responding like a defender. If you're ready to sharpen your skills, challenge your understanding, and operate with confidence across offensive and defensive cybersecurity tasks, then Offensive and Defensive Hacking in Action is your essential guide. Take control of the attack chain. Build the defenses that matter. Start mastering cyber operations-today.