Adversarial Tradecraft in Cybersecurity. Offense versus defense in real-time computer conflict

Dan Borges

Little has been written about what to do when live hackers are on your system and running amok. Even experienced hackers tend to choke up when they realize the network defender has caught them and is zoning in on their implants in real time. This book will provide tips and tricks all along the kill chain of an attack, showing where hackers can have the upper hand in a live conflict and how defenders can outsmart them in this adversarial game of computer cat and mouse.This book contains two subsections in each chapter, specifically focusing on the offensive and defensive teams. It begins by introducing you to adversarial operations and principles of computer conflict where you will explore the core principles of deception, humanity, economy, and more about human-on-human conflicts. Additionally, you will understand everything from planning to setting up infrastructure and tooling that both sides should have in place.Throughout this book, you will learn how to gain an advantage over opponents by disappearing from what they can detect. You will further understand how to blend in, uncover other actors’ motivations and means, and learn to tamper with them to hinder their ability to detect your presence. Finally, you will learn how to gain an advantage through advanced research and thoughtfully concluding an operation.By the end of this book, you will have achieved a solid understanding of cyberattacks from both an attacker’s and a defender’s perspective.

Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development. Click here to enter text. - Third Edition

Jonathan Peppers

Xamarin is a leading cross-platform application development tool used by top companies such as Coca-Cola, Honeywell, and Alaska Airlines to build apps. Version 4 features significant updates to the platform including the release of Xamarin.Forms 2.0 and improvements have been made to the iOS and Android designers. Xamarin was acquired by Microsoft so it is now a part of the Visual Studio family.This book will show you how to build applications for iOS, Android, and Windows. You will be walked through the process of creating an application that comes complete with a back-end web service and native features such as GPS location, camera, push notifications, and other core features. Additionally, you’ll learn how to use external libraries with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms to create user interfaces. This book also provides instructions for Visual Studio and Windows. This edition has been updated with new screenshots and detailed steps to provide you with a holistic overview of the new features in Xamarin 4.

C# 13 and .NET 9 - Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals. Start building websites and services with ASP.NET Core 9, Blazor, and EF Core 9 - Ninth Edition

Mark J. Price

This Packt bestseller continues to be the definitive guide to modern cross-platform development. The 9th edition of C# 13 and .NET 9 – Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals has been updated to cover the latest features and improvements in .NET 9 and C# 13. You'll start by mastering object-oriented programming, learning how to write, test, and debug functions, and implementing interfaces. You'll then dive into .NET APIs for data management, filesystem operations, and serialization.This latest edition integrates .NET 9 enhancements into its examples: faster exceptions and new LINQ methods. New ASP.NET Core 9 features include optimized static assets, built-in OpenAPI document generation, and the HybridCache.Practical examples, such as building websites and services with ASP.NET Core, have been refreshed to utilize the latest .NET 9 features. The book also introduces Blazor, with its new unified hosting model for unparalleled code reusability. With these updates, you'll learn how to build robust applications and services efficiently and effectively.By the end of this book, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to create professional and high-performance web applications using the latest technologies in C# 13 and .NET 9.

Spark for Data Science. Click here to enter text

Srinivas Duvvuri, Bikramaditya Singhal

This is the era of Big Data. The words ‘Big Data’ implies big innovation and enables a competitive advantage for businesses. Apache Spark was designed to perform Big Data analytics at scale, and so Spark is equipped with the necessary algorithms and supports multiple programming languages.Whether you are a technologist, a data scientist, or a beginner to Big Data analytics, this book will provide you with all the skills necessary to perform statistical data analysis, data visualization, predictive modeling, and build scalable data products or solutions using Python, Scala, and R.With ample case studies and real-world examples, Spark for Data Science will help you ensure the successful execution of your data science projects.

Learning Grunt. Monitor and automate complex JavaScript tasks and processes by obtaining a practical understanding of Grunt

Douglas Reynolds

With the increasing focus on task automation, the Grunt task runner is a vast platform that allows you to incorporate automation into your workflows.At the outset, you will learn how to use Node.js and NMP through an example. You will then find out how to build a sample app and the development environment for it. You will further delve into the implementation of Grunt plugins and the configuration of Grunt tasks. Furthermore, you will explore the various methods and packages for workflow automation. The final chapter will cover some advanced concepts, such as configuration variables and how to create a Grunt plugin.By the end of the book, you will have gained the fundamentals of Grunt and progressed through advanced concepts, including building a Grunt plugin.

Python: End-to-end Data Analysis. Leverage the power of Python to clean, scrape, analyze, and visualize your data

Ivan Idris, Luiz Felipe Martins, Martin Czygan, Phuong Vo.T.H, ...

Data analysis is the process of applying logical and analytical reasoning to study each component of data present in the system. Python is a multi-domain, high-level, programming language that offers a range of tools and libraries suitable for all purposes, it has slowly evolved as one of the primary languages for data science. Have you ever imagined becoming an expert at effectively approaching data analysis problems, solving them, and extracting all of the available information from your data? If yes, look no further, this is the course you need!In this course, we will get you started with Python data analysis by introducing the basics of data analysis and supported Python libraries such as matplotlib, NumPy, and pandas. Create visualizations by choosing color maps, different shapes, sizes, and palettes then delve into statistical data analysis using distribution algorithms and correlations. You’ll then find your way around different data and numerical problems, get to grips with Spark and HDFS, and set up migration scripts for web mining. You’ll be able to quickly and accurately perform hands-on sorting, reduction, and subsequent analysis, and fully appreciate how data analysis methods can support business decision-making. Finally, you will delve into advanced techniques such as performing regression, quantifying cause and effect using Bayesian methods, and discovering how to use Python’s tools for supervised machine learning.The course provides you with highly practical content explaining data analysis with Python, from the following Packt books:1. Getting Started with Python Data Analysis.2. Python Data Analysis Cookbook.3. Mastering Python Data Analysis.By the end of this course, you will have all the knowledge you need to analyze your data with varying complexity levels, and turn it into actionable insights.

C++ Programming for Linux Systems. Create robust enterprise software for Linux and Unix-based operating systems

Desislav Andreev, Stanimir Lukanov, Milena Lazarova

Around 35 million Linux and almost 2 billion Android users rely on C++ for everything from the simplest embedded and IoT devices to cloud services, supercomputing, and space exploration. To help you produce high-quality software, two industry experts have transformed their knowledge and experience into practical examples in system programming with C++ Programming for Linux Systems.In this book, you'll explore the latest C++20 features, while working on multiple specific use cases. You’ll get familiar with the coroutines and modern approaches in concurrent and multithreaded programming. You'll also learn to reshape your thinking when analyzing system behavior in Linux (POSIX) environments. Additionally, you'll discover advanced discussions and novel solutions for complex challenges, while approaching trivial system operations with a new outlook and learning to choose the best design for your particular case.You can use this workbook as an introduction to system programming and software design in Linux or any Unix-based environment. You’ll also find it useful as a guideline or a supplement to any C++ book.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained advanced knowledge and skills for working with Linux or any Unix-based environment.

The Unsupervised Learning Workshop. Get started with unsupervised learning algorithms and simplify your unorganized data to help make future predictions

Aaron Jones, Christopher Kruger, Benjamin Johnston

Do you find it difficult to understand how popular companies like WhatsApp and Amazon find valuable insights from large amounts of unorganized data? The Unsupervised Learning Workshop will give you the confidence to deal with cluttered and unlabeled datasets, using unsupervised algorithms in an easy and interactive manner.The book starts by introducing the most popular clustering algorithms of unsupervised learning. You'll find out how hierarchical clustering differs from k-means, along with understanding how to apply DBSCAN to highly complex and noisy data. Moving ahead, you'll use autoencoders for efficient data encoding.As you progress, you’ll use t-SNE models to extract high-dimensional information into a lower dimension for better visualization, in addition to working with topic modeling for implementing natural language processing (NLP). In later chapters, you’ll find key relationships between customers and businesses using Market Basket Analysis, before going on to use Hotspot Analysis for estimating the population density of an area.By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with the skills you need to apply unsupervised algorithms on cluttered datasets to find useful patterns and insights.

Deep Learning from the Basics. Python and Deep Learning: Theory and Implementation

Koki Saitoh

Deep learning is rapidly becoming the most preferred way of solving data problems. This is thanks, in part, to its huge variety of mathematical algorithms and their ability to find patterns that are otherwise invisible to us.Deep Learning from the Basics begins with a fast-paced introduction to deep learning with Python, its definition, characteristics, and applications. You’ll learn how to use the Python interpreter and the script files in your applications, and utilize NumPy and Matplotlib in your deep learning models. As you progress through the book, you’ll discover backpropagation—an efficient way to calculate the gradients of weight parameters—and study multilayer perceptrons and their limitations, before, finally, implementing a three-layer neural network and calculating multidimensional arrays.By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge to apply the relevant technologies in deep learning.

Interpretable Machine Learning with Python. Build explainable, fair, and robust high-performance models with hands-on, real-world examples - Second Edition

Serg Masís, Aleksander Molak, Denis Rothman

Interpretable Machine Learning with Python, Second Edition, brings to light the key concepts of interpreting machine learning models by analyzing real-world data, providing you with a wide range of skills and tools to decipher the results of even the most complex models.Build your interpretability toolkit with several use cases, from flight delay prediction to waste classification to COMPAS risk assessment scores. This book is full of useful techniques, introducing them to the right use case. Learn traditional methods, such as feature importance and partial dependence plots to integrated gradients for NLP interpretations and gradient-based attribution methods, such as saliency maps.In addition to the step-by-step code, you’ll get hands-on with tuning models and training data for interpretability by reducing complexity, mitigating bias, placing guardrails, and enhancing reliability.By the end of the book, you’ll be confident in tackling interpretability challenges with black-box models using tabular, language, image, and time series data.

AWS SysOps Cookbook. Practical recipes to build, automate, and manage your AWS-based cloud environments - Second Edition

Eric Z. Beard, Rowan Udell, Lucas Chan

AWS is an on-demand remote computing service providing cloud infrastructure over the internet with storage, bandwidth, and customized support for APIs. This updated second edition will help you implement these services and efficiently administer your AWS environment.You will start with the AWS fundamentals and then understand how to manage multiple accounts before setting up consolidated billing. The book will assist you in setting up reliable and fast hosting for static websites, sharing data between running instances and backing up data for compliance. By understanding how to use compute service, you will also discover how to achieve quick and consistent instance provisioning. You’ll then learn to provision storage volumes and autoscale an app server. Next, you’ll explore serverless development with AWS Lambda, and gain insights into using networking and database services such as Amazon Neptune. The later chapters will focus on management tools like AWS CloudFormation, and how to secure your cloud resources and estimate costs for your infrastructure. Finally, you’ll use the AWS well-architected framework to conduct a technology baseline review self-assessment and identify critical areas for improvement in the management and operation of your cloud-based workloads.By the end of this book, you’ll have the skills to effectively administer your AWS environment.

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux. Build your defense against web attacks with Kali Linux 2.0

Juned Ahmed Ansari, Juned Ahmed Ansari

RESS Essentials. If you're involved in Responsive Web Design, then you'll find this book on the fundamental features and techniques of RESS a very useful tool. It's the ideal introduction to a revolutionary new methodology

Jerzy Kurowski, Joanna Krenz-Kurowska, Jerzy Kurowski

RESS is a new methodology in the world of web design and development. It attempts to solve the problems that accompany the RWD (responsive web design) approach to web design. RESS is still in its infancy, but it is growing at an exponential rate.RESS Essentials shows you how to make server-side applications smarter and more aware of a visitor's environment limitations (device, screen size, and browser). This allows you to create faster and more reliable websites. Through this book, you will build a solid base of knowledge on RESS-related technologies, while the step-by-step tutorials will help you to create your own RESS system.This book is an introduction to RESS alchemy and gives you an incentive to build your own RESS lab. It will give you a broad overview of the multiple techniques used to code responsive websites in responsible ways. Beginning with an overview of RWD, you will learn the steps involved in setting up RWD for client-side development. You will then learn how to scale images using client- and server-side technology. By the end of this book, you will have learned about the implementation of RESS application patterns, browser feature detection, and various RESS architectures. RESS Essentials will also teach you how to use jQuery with some RWD design patterns and how to employ REST API for RWD pages.

Unreal Engine 4 AI Programming Essentials. Create responsive and intelligent game AI using Blueprints in Unreal Engine 4

Jie Feng, Peter Newton

Unreal Engine is a powerful game development engine that provides rich functionalities to create 2D and 3D games. Developers have the opportunity to build cross-platform mobile and desktop games from scratch. This book will show you how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to your Unreal project using blueprints as your scripting language. You will start with an introduction to AI, and learn how it is applied to gaming. Then you'll jump right in and create a simple AI bot and apply basic behaviors to allow it to move randomly. As you progress, you'll find out how to implement randomness and probability traits. Using NavMesh, you will impart navigation components such as character movement, MoveTo nodes, settings, and world objects, and implement Behavior Trees. At the end of the book, you will troubleshoot any issues that might crop up while building the game.

Web Services Testing with soapUI. Starting with an overview of SOA and web services testing, this guide take you through a number of hands-on exercises and projects to get you familiar with soapUI. A sure way to raise the quality of your web services

Charitha Kankanamge

Quality is a key to success of service-oriented projects. Utilization of proper tools is important to the outcome of web service testing methodology. Being the leading open source web services testing tool, soapUI helps to build robust and flexible automated tests in a productive manner.Web Services Testing with soapUI guides you on adopting best web service testing mechanisms with the industry leading open source testing tool, soapUI. You will learn to use soapUI effectively in testing service-oriented solutions focusing on testing functional as well as non-functional characteristics of web services. SoapUI is capable of testing JDBC data sources, web applications, RESTful services and web services exposed over transports such as JMS. The book discusses all these features and much more, in detail, through practical and clear examples.This book is focused on learning soapUI in order to test web services in an effective manner. It starts with a general introduction to service-oriented architecture (SOA) followed by testing aspects of service-oriented solutions. This book aims to give readers a comprehensive overview of usage of soapUI in SOA and web services testing projects. Starting with an overview of SOA and web services testing, you will quickly get your hands dirty with a sample project which makes use of open source web service engine, Apache Axis2. All demonstrations and hands-on exercises are based on this sample project. The tests in a soapUI project are organized into TestSuites, TestCases and TestSteps. You will also learn how soapUI can be used for both functional and non-functional testing. The book then teaches how by using groovy scripting and integrating with Junit and maven, soapUI can easily be used in automated web services testing. By the end, you'llhave learned to test functional and non-functional aspects of web services and automate by integrating into continuous build systems using soapUI.

CentOS System Administration Essentials. Become an efficient CentOS administrator by acquiring real-world knowledge of system setup and configuration

Andrew Mallett, Andrew Mallett

Building Smart Homes with Raspberry Pi Zero. Click here to enter text

Marco Schwartz

The release of the Raspberry Pi Zero has completely amazed the tech community. With the price, form factor, and being high on utility—the Raspberry Pi Zero is the perfect companion to support home automation projects and makes IoT even more accessible.With this book, you will be able to create and program home automation projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero board. The book will teach you how to build a thermostat that will automatically regulate the temperature in your home. Another important topic in home automation is controlling electrical appliances, and you will learn how to control LED Lights, lamps, and other electrical applications. Moving on, we will build a smart energy meter that can measure the power of the appliance, and you’ll learn how to switch it on and off. You’ll also see how to build simple security system, composed of alarms, a security camera, and motion detectors. At the end, you will integrate everything what you learned so far into a more complex project to automate the key aspects of your home.By the end, you will have deepened your knowledge of the Raspberry Pi Zero, and will know how to build autonomous home automation projects.

Enterprise Application Development with C# 10 and .NET 6. Become a professional .NET developer by learning expert techniques for building scalable applications - Second Edition

Ravindra Akella, Arun Kumar Tamirisa, Suneel Kumar Kunani, Bhupesh Guptha Muthiyalu

Building production-ready enterprise applications can be a challenging task due to the overabundance of tools and their different versions that make app development complex. This book simplifies the process with an end-to-end road map for building enterprise applications from scratch using the latest features of .NET Core 6 and C# 10.Throughout the book, you'll work on creating an enterprise app, adding a key component to the app with each chapter, before ?nally getting it ready for testing and deployment. You'll learn concepts relating to advanced data structures, the Entity Framework Core, parallel programming, and dependency injection. As you progress, you'll cover various authentication and authorization schemes provided by .NET Core to make your apps and APIs secure. The book then shows you how the latest Microsoft Visual Studio and C# 10 help you simplify developer tasks and shares tips and tricks in Visual Studio to improve your productivity. You'll discover various testing techniques, such as unit testing and performance testing, as well as di?erent methods to deploy enterprise apps.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to create enterprise apps using the powerful features of .NET 6 and deploy them to the cloud while working with various cloud components using Azure.

PrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide. Build your own attractive online store with this fast and flexible e-commerce solution - Second Edition

Jose A. Tizon, John Horton

PrestaShop is an open source, e-commerce solution which allows you to build a highly functional, flexible, and attractive online store.InPrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide you will learn how to set up, extend, and personalize your own online shop. Newly updated to focus on PrestaShop 1.5, this book features descriptive and practical tutorials on everything you need to make a splash in the world of e-commerce.If you want to start selling your products online but are a bit daunted about shipping, tax, and designing your online presence, then this is the book for you.This practical book starts by showing you how to download, install, and configure your own shop. Using a step-by-step approach, this book takes you through the processes required to create a fully functioning online shop with the potential to make you serious money.With distinct chapters on the methods required to make your products stand out to your customers better, this title will enable you to create and customize a vivid, online presence to get people visiting your store and buying your goods.Targeting further sales, this book then shows you how to develop a targeted search engine optimization campaign to get new customers and keep existing customers returning. From here you will learn how to tackle complicated tax rates and shipping costs efficiently and with less hassle to ensure your customers are satisfied with your service.If you want to start your own e-commerce business using PrestaShop, then this book will show you how.

Mastering JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7. Core details of the Enteprise server supported by clear directions and advanced tips

Francesco Marchioni, Luigi Fugaro

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) has been one of the most popular tools for Java developers to create modular, cloud-ready, and modern applications. It has achieved a reputation for architectural excellence and technical savvy, making it a solid and efficient environment for delivering your applications.The book will first introduce application server configuration and the management instruments that can be used to control the application server. Next, the focus will shift to enterprise solutions such as clustering, load balancing, and data caching; this will be the core of the book. We will also discuss services provided by the application server, such as database connectivity and logging. We focus on real-world example configurations and how to avoid common mistakes. Finally, we will implement the knowledge gained so far in terms of Docker containers and cloud availability using RedHat's OpenShift.

AI and Business Rule Engines for Excel Power Users. Capture and scale your business knowledge into the cloud – with Microsoft 365, Decision Models, and AI tools from IBM and Red Hat

Paul Browne, Alex Porcelli

Microsoft Excel is widely adopted across diverse industries, but Excel Power Users often encounter limitations such as complex formulas, obscure business knowledge, and errors from using outdated sheets. They need a better enterprise-level solution, and this book introduces Business rules combined with the power of AI to tackle the limitations of Excel.This guide will give you a roadmap to link KIE (an industry-standard open-source application) to Microsoft’s business process automation tools, such as Power Automate, Power Query, Office Script, Forms, VBA, Script Lab, and GitHub. You’ll dive into the graphical Decision Modeling standard including decision tables, FEEL expressions, and advanced business rule editing and testing.By the end of the book, you’ll be able to share your business knowledge as graphical models, deploy and execute these models in the cloud (with Azure and OpenShift), link them back to Excel, and then execute them as an end-to-end solution removing human intervention. You’ll be equipped to solve your Excel queries and start using the next generation of Microsoft Office tools.

Realistic Asset Creation with Adobe Substance 3D. Create materials, textures, filters, and 3D models using Substance 3D Painter, Designer, and Stager

Zeeshan Jawed Shah

Adobe Substance 3D is a comprehensive suite complete with everything an artist needs to create stunning 3D digital materials. Getting a grip on the ecosystem of apps can be challenging for beginners, which is where Realistic Asset Creation with Adobe Substance 3D comes in!This practical guide doesn't bombard you with reams of textual information. Instead, you get an interactive, project-based book that’ll help you gain sound knowledge of Adobe Substance 3D and set you on the right path toward a career in 3D design. You’ll start off with the rudiments of Adobe Substance 3D Painter, which will enable you to acquire the skills needed to work with layers, masks, shelves, textures, and more. Next, you’ll move on to Adobe Substance 3D Designer and become well-acquainted with this node-based design tool as you progress through the chapters. The final section is devoted to Adobe Substance 3D Stager, which teaches you to build complex 3D scenes and visualize your edits in real time.By the end of this Adobe book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of Adobe Substance 3D and developed the skills to build a comprehensive portfolio of work, setting you up for a lucrative career in 3D design.

The Azure IoT Handbook. Develop IoT solutions using the intelligent edge-to-cloud technologies

Dan Clark

With the rise of cloud-based computing, deploying IoT systems has become more cost-effective for businesses. This transformation has led to developers and architects shouldering the responsibility of creating, managing, and securing these systems, even if they are new to the IoT technology. The Azure IoT Handbook is a comprehensive introduction to quickly bring you up to speed in this rapidly evolving landscape.Starting with the basic building blocks of any IoT system, this book guides you through mobile device management and data collection using an IoT hub. You’ll explore essential tools for system security and monitoring. Following data collection, you’ll delve into real-time data analytics using Azure Stream Analytics and view real-time streaming on a Power BI dashboard. Packed with real-world examples, this book covers common IoT use as well.By the end of this IoT book, you’ll know how to design and develop IoT solutions leveraging intelligent edge-to-cloud technologies implemented on Azure.

Mastering Kubernetes. Level up your container orchestration skills with Kubernetes to build, run, secure, and observe large-scale distributed apps - Third Edition

Gigi Sayfan

The third edition of Mastering Kubernetes is updated with the latest tools and code enabling you to learn Kubernetes 1.18’s latest features. This book primarily concentrates on diving deeply into complex concepts and Kubernetes best practices to help you master the skills of designing and deploying large clusters on various cloud platforms.The book trains you to run complex stateful microservices on Kubernetes including advanced features such as horizontal pod autoscaling, rolling updates, resource quotas, and persistent storage backend. With the two new chapters, you will gain expertise in serverless computing and utilizing service meshes.As you proceed through the chapters, you will explore different options for network configuration and learn to set up, operate, and troubleshoot Kubernetes networking plugins through real-world use cases. Furthermore, you will understand the mechanisms of custom resource development and its utilization in automation and maintenance workflows.By the end of this Kubernetes book, you will graduate from an intermediate to advanced Kubernetes professional.