Black Hat Week (Black Hat Rust is out 🍾)
Black Hat Rust is out of beta :)
v2021.40
It's now official, as of v2021.40, Black Hat Rust is considered out of beta and complete!
Hundreds of typos have been corrected, layout issues have been fixed, and there is no more "coming soon" remaining. I've also added a few tips and tricks, such as how to perform an Evil Twin attack in chapter 9.
Of course, a few issues (such as subtle typos) may remain here and there. There always are mistakes. But nothing grotesque.
Today, Black Hat Rust it's:
- More than 800 Early-Access and Beta supporters who made this project a reality. Thank you very much 🙏
- 351 Pages for the PDF version
- 9458 Lines of Rust open sourced
- More than 1000 GitHub stars
- 9443 Lines of Markdown for the manuscript
- 1700+ Git commits for the manuscript
- 515 Git commits for the code
- 80 Illustrations
To celebrate that, I've decided to offer you the biggest (and the last) discount of the year: https://academy.kerkour.com/black-hat-rust?coupon=BLACK-HAT-WEEK.
This coupon is active only for 1 week, until Wednesday, December 8 at 11:59 PM. Due to demand, I've extended the coupon's validity period to Sunday, December 12 at 11:59 PM :)
This is also the last week to get the awesome early-access bonus: A curated list of advanced malware analyses. You will find great inspiration inside for your own offensive tools.
Distribution channels
I tried to publish the book on Amazon KDP (Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing), but it was a disaster.
The first thing is that it would add me a lot of tax forms to fill and nobody enjoy that. If it was only that, I could have surpassed my paperwork phobia.
But, the second, and most important thing, is the cut Amazon takes. You thought that the 30% cut Apple takes on the App Store is huge? Amazon takes 70% (for a book that costs more than $9.99 or less than $2.99). And that's before taxes. I'm sorry Amazon, while I appreciate the buying experience on your marketplace, I respect my work and myself. I didn't work so hard on this book to give you the biggest piece of the cake just to move a few bits here and there 🖕.
Thus, I've decided to keep Podia and Stripe as the only distribution channel. It just works and the fees are reasonable.
If for some reason you absolutely can't buy the book by card, please send me a message.
Why Black Hat Rust?
If you're still reading at this point, you may be wondering Why Black Hat Rust? Why a book about hacking and Rust?
The world of software is plagued by too many programming languages with too many footguns. You have to choose between fast and unsafe (C, C++...) or slow but mostly safe (Python, Java...).
What if we could have language that is fast, memory safe, provide low-level controls and high-level abstractions? A language that could help us craft everything, from web servers to shellcodes, passing by scanners and Remote Access Tools. All of that while being cross-platform. Sounds too good to be true?
It's not! Rust is the programming language that meets all these requirements. Of course, there are some pitfalls and a few things to know, but everything is covered in the book.
Black Hat Rust is a distilled from-theory-to-practice guide teaching cryptography and how to code in Rust through applied security projects.
In the 14 chapters, we are going to build:
- Design and implement an end-to-end encryption protocol
- A fast and reusable network scanner
- Cross-platform shellcodes
- A phishing toolkit and a website with WebAssembly
- A cross-platform Remote Access Tool
- An Evil Twin access point
- A cross-platform worm
- And many other tools, tips, and tricks
You will love it if any of the following:
- You keep screaming "show me the code!" when reading about cyber attacks and malware
- You are a developer and want to learn security
- You are a security engineer and want to learn Rust programming
- You want to learn applied cryptography
- You want to learn real-world and idiomatic rust practices
- You believe that the best defense is thinking like an attacker
- You learn by building and love to look under the hood
- You value simplicity and pragmatism
Also, while the Rust Book does an excellent job teaching What is Rust, a book about Why and How to Rust was missing.
Reminder: the coupon expires next week, on Wednesday, December 8 at 11:59 PM. Due to demand, I've extended the coupon's validity period to Sunday, December 12 at 11:59 PM :) https://academy.kerkour.com/black-hat-rust?coupon=BLACK-HAT-WEEK.
Now I'm going to sleep 😅