Beginners Guide on Python for Cybersecurity

Many people say that programming is not compulsory for working in cybersecurity, well it’s not true. Cybersecurity requires programming and nowadays Python is very popular because of its amazing features and flexibility. Cybersecurity is practice of protecting digital technologies from harmful malicious attacks on platforms like cloud, mobile device, network, etc. Consider taking a cyber security training program and get the perfect set of skills.

What is Python?

Python is high-level language, object-oriented interpreted programming language. It was created by Guido van Rossum during 1985-1990. Python source code is available under GNU General Public License (GPL).

Python is a must and very much useful for students and working professionals to become a software engineer. Python is a language that can be used in most domains nowadays. Python is object-oriented so doing encapsulation will be very much useful. Python is interpreted language, hence compiling before fore ore executing is not required and it can be executed directly. It can also be used as the scripting language. It has an auto garbage collection feature.

• Python is easy to learn
• It has interactive mode
• It is portable means it can run on wide range of hardware devices
• Python supports GUI (Graphical User Interface) application to that can be transfer to many windows systems 
• For cybersecurity python can be used in various things like making tool, writing scripts, etc.

To learn python, you just need basic understanding of computer programming usage

Why Python for Cybersecurity?

Python is easy to learn and implement

Python is a lightweight language. It doesn’t require lengthy line of codes. It is uncomplicated language. As you can see that python is straightforward so it will be much easier to learn as compared to other programming languages like C, Java, etc. Python requires minimal lines of codes.

Python is open source

Python is an open-source programming language. Means anyone can give their contribution like Linux is also an open source. Python has strong community because of strong developers’ community which always try to make it better and better. Also, python is free for use. 

Automatic Memory Management

Python has built-in memory management system. This is very much helpful for developers because they must be less concern about memory management. You do not have to worry about caching, segmentation, etc. 

Scripts in python can be created quickly

Biggest benefit for cybersecurity professional is that it makes scripting way much easier. Many applications have limited backend coding. Sometime after an cyberattack or during vulnerability assessment python has benefit because of its simplicity it takes small amount of time to repair or to fix it

Python can be used for mostly everything in cybersecurity

If a cybersecurity professional is an expert in python and concept is crystal clear, then they can do any task they want to. Like python can be used in making payloads, used for malware analysis, decoding of packets, accessing servers, network scanning, port scanning and many more. Python in cyber security can be used for automation too which makes cybersecurity’s reconnaissance (information gathering) much more effortless and time saving. 

Python for cybersecurity is useful also because of its extensive libraries

Python has many libraries and frameworks which are very much useful and make work of a cybersecurity professional easier. It is also very much useful for Pen Testing. But for penetration testing you should first need to take and learn an Ethical Hacking course These libraries make the script minimal and much more useful as compared to other languages, After all python is the most straightforward language as compared to languages like C, Java, etc.

Know more about importance of it security in online business.

Benefits of Python Programming

Productivity

Python can be considered as the most productive programming language. Because of its simplicity developers can focus on main aim of project or on problem during any assessment of vulnerability. It also optimizes memory allocation, because it requires less line of codes so it will be easier for compiler to compile and run the Python program.

Interpreted Language

Python is also famous for its feature of being an interpreted language. Interpreted means compiling is not required before executing the program. It directly executes the code line by line.

Portability

It is portable across various operating system; hence unlike C/C++ we do not have to write the code again for different platform. 

So, it will be beneficial since we do not have to write the script/code again and again, it will be time and effort efficient. 

Vast library support

You can almost find any library in python standard library, because python’s standard library is immense. Python’s standard library contains more than 200 crore library which we can use for various purpose like making games, doing scientific or computational analysis, GUI based desktop application, Database access, etc.

Child’s play to learn python programming

Python is a high-level programming language that has normal and easy English like structure which is easy to learn, write and understand the code. You can write any program in a smaller number of lines as compared to other programming language like C/C++, Java, etc.

Dynamically Typed

Python is a dynamically typed language means you do not have to worry to always declare the data type of the variable, it will automatically assign the type during the execution according to its value. You can also go through KnowledgeHut cybersecurity training. It is an amazing training to learn cybersecurity.

How Python is used by Cybersecurity Analysts?

Now the question must be that who are cybersecurity analysts? Cybersecurity Analyst are the professional one who build and secure the IT organization’s network and infrastructure.

Cybersecurity Analyst uses python for implementing the major check-ups by using the automated script which can be created by using python. There are many libraries which helps the professional to write efficient code in minimal line of code. It also contains automated tools which can be customize according to their requirement. It can be used to write automatic responses according to user’s input, but for that also one must configure it according to their requirement. They can also make their own tools.

Cybersecurity analysts have to write their own automation code which obviously will be beneficial to write in python because majority of time the domain will be vast and an analysts can’t show any error code one by one on every server, for that a cybersecurity analyst will write an automation code which will executed according to the configuration means when the automated code should be executed. Know more about how to get knowledge about the certified ethical hacker. 

The Top 14 Python Libraries for Cybersecurity

Python is most popular language because its free and straight forward means easy to learn, requires less lines of code. Python’s library is vast. There are many libraries used for cybersecurity like as follows: 

Network security libraries

Tools like NMAP and Twisted are broadly used for scanning of network layer and enumeration of ports, different application protocols.

Beautiful Soup

It is used for collecting the scrap data form webpage in form of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and XML (Extensible Markup Language). 

YARA

It is used for malware identification and classification.

Mechanize

It is used for interacting with data. It is also used for SQL Injection and XSS (Cross Side Scripting). It can used to catch data of webpage.

Pymetasploit3

In this library you can use Metasploit framework to find different vulnerabilities on different environment or platform like for mobile exploitation, Linux exploitation, Windows exploitation.

Metasploit contain vast number of payloads.

Scapy

It is used for decoding packets, analysing packets, packet processing on any network.

Cryptography Library

Cryptography libraries are used to secure or encrypt any file for process using cryptographic algorithms.

Psscan

It is used to expose terminated process, means which process are already stopped. This helps in finding the previous process from which we can find some information about the attacker. 

Pslist

It uses to show all process and verify which process how started and ended. This can used to find the behaviour of the process.

Many more libraries are

Twisted

Twisted is network programming framework written in Python, which is developed by Glyph Lefkowitz and it is licensed under MIT license. Released on October 22, 2002. I basically help us to create SMTP, SSH, HTTP servers, etc. with more accuracy and ease. 

Pylibnet

Pylibnet is a python module used for injection of libnet packets. Basically, libnet is an API which is used for creation and injection of network packets. It is also used for construction of network packets at IP layer, Link layer and as the host of supplementary and complementary functionality 

RawSocketPy

Raw Socket is a layer 2 python library which is used for communication using only MAC address. This allows us to make custom Wi-Fi/Ethernet communication system which is made without using IP, TCP or UDP.

Pwntools

Pwntools is a CTF toolkit which is a CTF framework and exploit development library. It is used for fast development of exploit writing with peak ease.

Requests

Request in python will allow you to send HTTP/1.1 requests. It will give us all content, encoding, status as a response object. Response object contains the server’s response to the HTTP request. There are many more useful libraries too, above listed are the famous one. 

How to Learn Python for Cybersecurity?

First, you need to learn python language by some training course or blog. Then you have to practice python basics. Then specially for cybersecurity perspective you have to start the scripting and learning the cryptographic algorithm for securing the files and communication inside or outside the domain. There are also many books which will teach you how python is used for penetration testing and many more field of cybersecurity like bug hunting.

Looking to boost your IT career? Discover the power of ITIL Foundation Level. Master the essentials in a unique way. Start your journey today!

Conclusion

Python is and will be the most demanding programming and scripting language in the coming future for cybersecurity, so keep digging for it and keep learning. The above content will be very much helpful for beginner in python programming.

Always keep discovering new libraries and try to master them. If you do mastery in python some job roles and path will be open for you in IT or cybersecurity field, but don’t only rely on python because as I mentioned before only few job roles are there for only python scripting. Keep hustling and learning the cybersecurity things, because learning never end’s (specially in cybersecurity).