October 2025
Beginner
416 pages
10h 15m
English
Content preview from Hacking For Dummies, 8th Edition
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Chapter 22
Ten Deadly Mistakes
IN THIS CHAPTER
Avoiding the wrong choices
Preventing security disasters
Making the wrong choices in your security testing can wreak havoc on your work and possibly even your career. In this chapter, I discuss ten potential pitfalls to be keenly aware of when performing your security assessment work.
Not Getting Approval
Getting documented approval in advance, such as via email or a formal contract for your security testing efforts — whether it’s from management or your client — is a must. Outside of laws on the books that might affect your testing, it’s your “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Allow no exceptions — especially when you’re an outsider doing work for clients. Make sure to get a signed copy of this document to file near your general and professional liability insurance policies to ensure that you’re protected.
Assuming That You Can Find All Vulnerabilities
So many security vulnerabilities exist — known and unknown — that you cannot possibly find them all during your testing. Don’t make any guarantees that you’ll find all the security vulnerabilities in a system. You’ll be starting something that you can’t finish.
Stick to the following ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.