Python for SecuritySpecialists Cybrary Review

This is my review of the  Cybrary course, Python for Security Professionals, To begin with, I must say i appreciate the Cybrary.it model, the lessons are typical free and you can get a certificate of completion (which may help validate the 15 CPEs the course may be worth, if you want to justify that type of thing) if you want at the end. However, the whole site model is interesting in that you can "complete" some of the courses (lol in reality, I've "completed" most of the courses), and buy the relevant certificate, without ever having clicked some of the video links. That seemingly large security mistake type of invalidates the certificates, as anyone can obviously say the've completed the course and have the certificate with no done so. All of the aside, I enjoy the idea of free education material and we shall now be delving into the content of the Python for Security Professionals course. Like my other reviews, I'm going to go over the material and recommend this based in your experience and time commitment. The course contains 10 hours of video content, which are pretty decent particularly if you are attempting to learn Python from scratch, but slightly less so if you are attempting to learn the nuances of Information Security. All the modules are video focused, but include PDFs of slides, activities in python programs, and the completed methods to the activities in python programs. Overall, the very first four modules are extremely basic and mostly just cover programming in python vs security specific tasks. Another issue is that currently most of the videos are pretty blurry and it's hard to learn the code / command line found in the video series. Because of this you have to view the videos in HD, nevertheless they address this in the comments and mention how they will soon be re-releasing the videos in a higher resolution. By the end of the weekend, I'd recommend this course to somebody who is attempting to understand Python from scratch with an Information Security focus, but also for someone with an increase of of a background in Python, I would actually recommend a text more like Black Hat Python, for more of an Information Security focus. Nevertheless, even although you are familiar with Python and Information Security, you could find the final two modules interesting (The Packet Gathering Module and the Info Gathering Module).


The first module, Intro and Setup, is pretty basic and be easily skipped if you have any prior Python experience. Here he covers how to setup and install Python, as well as why it's a great language for rapid prototyping and security professionals.

The next module, Apprentice Python, can be very basic and still doesn't touch on anything security related. This module is all about basic usage and arithmetic in Python. There is also a stumbling block in the next video, as it's only a little odd when he googles for solutions and then reads stack overflow through the tutorial.

The Journeyman Python module is interesting, but still doesn't delve into anything necessarily Information Security specific. In this module he talks a whole lot about networking protocols and RFCs that govern these. These modules are interesting in that they are informative, but fairly incomplete in the data they relay, a good example of this will be when he starts discussing ports and protocols he doesn't differentiate which transport protocol the applying protocols are traveling over go now, despite discussing the differences involving the TCP and UDP transport protocols. In this chapter you are shown you how for connecting to arbitrary TCP ports, which could be helpful for banner grabbing. The past activity in this module shows you how to listen to a TCP port and thus create your own arbitrary file server, however these lack really any security controls.

With Advanced Python he covers ctypes, regular expressions, multi-threading, and finally fuzzing. The multi-threading exercise in this module is pretty interesting, but still nothing really advanced, only a quick launching of multiple independent threads (vs something that has to think about deadlocks). The fuzzing section can be pretty interesting as this can be quite a core Information Security technique, so I appreciate the videos for Slides part 3, jperry even alludes to a barrier overflow in this video. Unfortunately, he also says fairly uneducated things like fuzzing and password cracking are similar in theory (the technique of bruteforce may be similar, but that hardly scratches the theory involved with either subject) or that writing a code cracker is against the CFAA, which is obviously false as industry professionals use password cracking all the time in penetration testing (trafficking hacked information or the specific act of hacking another person's system is illegal, not writing a code cracker). In this module's activities he also writes a fairly insecure file server implementation. I say it's insecure not because it enables you to arbitrary read / write to an entire drive, but because it uses no authentication or encryption to guard the communications, meaning anyone could trivially hijack your fileserver activities.

Packet Analyzer module is where things get really cool. Simply two, jperry starts implementing an IP protocol parser and demonstrates bitwise manipulation to learn exact fields out of the protocol. This is a pretty awesome tutorial for writing a network protocol parser in Python and something I would truly call Python for Security Professionals. I would recommend this section for anyone thinking about finding a more in depth handle of protocols and automated parsers.

The Info Gathering module can be really interesting, as here jperry writes a quick post-exploitation RAT in Python for Windows. This is excellent and where in fact the class really starts digginging into the Python applied to security specific applications. I enjoy where he uses python to parse the Windows registry key values, this is super helpful for various security applications. Overall, I think this is a pretty good Python for Security Professionals video. This module also covers all of the content from the Post Exploitation Hacking course in this script. I would recommend this module for moderately experienced hackers looking to start writing their very own implants.

Overall, the modules were done well and I appreciate the relaxed approach of the course and exercises. Nevertheless, I think the whole course is perfect for someone trying to understand Python from scratch, however if you already are a novice Python / Information Security enthusiast you should checkout something more like Black Hat Python, and even although you are well versed with Python and Information Security you could find the final two modules interesting. As for Cybrary.it, I must say i appreciate what they're doing with free education, I think this is a good program and it deserves plenty of support, however I don't think the certifications are worth anything, on the basis of the lack of business-logic security preventing anyone from just acquiring the certificates without having to feel the courses.

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