Book Image

Mastering Python for Networking and Security - Second Edition

By : José Ortega
Book Image

Mastering Python for Networking and Security - Second Edition

By: José Ortega

Overview of this book

It’s now more apparent than ever that security is a critical aspect of IT infrastructure, and that devastating data breaches can occur from simple network line hacks. As shown in this book, combining the latest version of Python with an increased focus on network security can help you to level up your defenses against cyber attacks and cyber threats. Python is being used for increasingly advanced tasks, with the latest update introducing new libraries and packages featured in the Python 3.7.4 recommended version. Moreover, most scripts are compatible with the latest versions of Python and can also be executed in a virtual environment. This book will guide you through using these updated packages to build a secure network with the help of Python scripting. You’ll cover a range of topics, from building a network to the procedures you need to follow to secure it. Starting by exploring different packages and libraries, you’ll learn about various ways to build a network and connect with the Tor network through Python scripting. You will also learn how to assess a network's vulnerabilities using Python security scripting. Later, you’ll learn how to achieve endpoint protection by leveraging Python packages, along with writing forensic scripts. By the end of this Python book, you’ll be able to use Python to build secure apps using cryptography and steganography techniques.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Python Environment and System Programming Tools
4
Section 2: Network Scripting and Extracting Information from the Tor Network with Python
8
Section 3: Server Scripting and Port Scanning with Python
12
Section 4: Server Vulnerabilities and Security in Python Modules
16
Section 5: Python Forensics

Exploring security in Python modules

In this section, we will cover security in Python modules, reviewing Python functions and modules that developers can use and that could result in security issues.

Python functions with security issues

We will begin by reviewing the security of Python modules and components, where we can highlight the eval, pickle, subprocess, os, and yaml modules.

The idea is to explore some Python functions and modules that can create security issues. For each one, we will study the security and explore alternatives to these modules.

For example, Python modules such as pickle and sub-process can only be used bearing in mind security and the problems that can appear as a result of their use.

Usually, Python's documentation includes a warning regarding the risks of a module from the security point of view, which looks something like this:

Figure 11.1 – Python module warning related to a security issue

The following...