Last week I was contacted by David Melnichuk to offer me a partnership/affiliate account for his ebook "The Hacker's underground Handbook". I said to David that I would prefer to see what's it all about before I would promote anything, but I would be willing to write a review and maybe promote it if he sends me a copy. He did that so here is my review ...

The pitch

I recently created the eBook: The Hacker’s Underground Handbook. It is targeted more towards people that are new to the hacking/security scene and still don’t know where to start. Although it is mainly targeted towards newbies, it also has content that will be valuable for intermediate skill levels. The product is completely legal. Once the product is purchased, the user will be taught to not abuse the knowledge gained, and the penalties if he/she chooses too.

After looking over the book briefly I completely agree that this is an ebook for newbies.

Also the phrase "learn what it takes to crack even the most secure systems" from the cover, over estimates the content. You would most likely not be able to crack the most secure systems only with the information in this book, but the author advices the reader to learn more and not rely only on the information in the book and even provides some links to more resources.

Content

I think the term hacker applies more to someone like Richard Stallman, Alan Cox, Linus Torvalds, etc then to someone like Kevin Mitnik. So in my opinion the book is more about cracking then hacking, but most people(newbies) don't know the difference so I'm not going to insist on this.

The book covers topics from  installing a linux distribution (with screenshots  a la howtoforge ) and password cracking to packet sniffing, using exploits, web site cracking, wifi cracking and social engineering ( which IMO is not really cracking but just a nerdier/l33t word for "lying" )

I like the fact that the book also offers some advices / countermeasures even if in some cases it doesn't present the most secure or all options.

Conclusions

If you're into cracking and you already know how to do a lot of stuff I would not recommend the book as there are no advanced techniques in the book but if you're new to this or you would just like to know how some things are done and how you can prevent some security incidents then the book offers a good collection of common cracking techniques.

The ebook comes with a bonus ebook named "1000 Hacking Tutorials Leaked", so for the price of $18.89 is probably a very good deal.

Click here to get the ebook ( yeah that's my affiliate link )

Have you read this book? I'd love to read your impressions about it in the comments.