Python for Security and Networking: Leverage Python modules and tools in securing your network and applications, 3rd Edition

Gain a firm, practical understanding of securing your network and utilize Python's packages to detect vulnerabilities in your application

Key Features

• Discover security techniques to protect your network and systems using Python
• Create scripts in Python to automate security and pentesting tasks
• Analyze traffic in a network and extract information using Python

Book Description

Python's latest updates add numerous libraries that can be used to perform critical security-related missions, including detecting vulnerabilities in web applications, taking care of attacks, and helping to build secure and robust networks that are resilient to them. This fully updated third edition will show you how to make the most of them and improve your security posture.

The first part of this book will walk you through Python scripts and libraries that you'll use throughout the book. Next, you'll dive deep into the core networking tasks where you will learn how to check a network's vulnerability using Python security scripting and understand how to check for vulnerabilities in your network – including tasks related to packet sniffing. You'll also learn how to achieve endpoint protection by leveraging Python packages along with writing forensics scripts.

The next part of the book will show you a variety of modern techniques, libraries, and frameworks from the Python ecosystem that will help you extract data from servers and analyze the security in web applications. You'll take your first steps in extracting data from a domain using OSINT tools and using Python tools to perform forensics tasks.

By the end of this book, you will be able to make the most of Python to test the security of your network and applications.

What you will learn

• Program your own tools in Python that can be used in a Network Security process
• Automate tasks of analysis and extraction of information from servers
• Detect server vulnerabilities and analyze security in web applications
• Automate security and pentesting tasks by creating scripts with Python
• Utilize the ssh-audit tool to check the security in SSH servers
• Explore WriteHat as a pentesting reports tool written in Python
• Automate the process of detecting vulnerabilities in applications with tools like Fuxploider

Who this book is for

This Python book is for network engineers, system administrators, and other security professionals looking to overcome common networking and security issues using Python. You will also find this book useful if you're an experienced programmer looking to explore Python's full range of capabilities. A basic understanding of general programming structures as well as familiarity with the Python programming language is a prerequisite.

Table of Contents

1. Working with Python Scripting
2. System Programming Packages
3. Socket Programming
4. HTTP Programming and Web Authentication
5. Analyzing Network Traffic and Packets Sniffing
6. Gathering Information from Servers with OSINT Tools
7. Interacting with FTP, SFTP, and SSH Servers
8. Working with Nmap Scanner
9. Interacting with Vulnerability Scanners
10. Interacting with Server Vulnerabilities in Web Applications
11. Obtain Information from Vulnerabilities Databases
12. Extracting Geolocation and Metadata from Documents, Images, and Browsers
13. Python Tools for Brute-Force Attacks
14. Cryptography and Code Obfuscation
15. Assessments – Answers to the End-of-Chapter Questions

José Manuel Ortega is a software engineer, focusing on new technologies, open source, security, and testing. His career goal has been to specialize in Python and security testing projects. In recent years, he has developed an interest in security development, especially in pentesting with Python. Currently, he is working as a security tester engineer and his functions in the role involves the analysis and testing of the security of applications in both web and mobile environments. He has taught at university level and collaborated with the official school of computer engineers. He has also been a speaker at various conferences. He is eager to learn about new technologies and loves to share his knowledge with the community.