The Attack Playbook
Field Guide · 7 Chapters · How Attackers Actually Think
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Franklin Green knew his systems had firewalls. He knew they had antivirus. What he didn't know was that none of that mattered once an attacker got a foothold — because he'd never thought about how attacks actually work, step by step, from the attacker's perspective.
Defenders who don't understand how attacks actually work tend to rely on tools and compliance checklists alone — without knowing whether those defenses actually cover the techniques attackers use. They follow playbooks — documented, repeatable, evolving methodologies that have been refined through thousands of successful breaches.
This manual walks through how real attacks happen: the reconnaissance phase before you even know you're a target, the techniques used to gain and maintain access, the network attacks that work in the background, and the specific methods — MitM, brute force, DoS/DDoS, injection, and more — that are behind most of the headlines.
7 chapters. Understand the offense. Build a real defense.
— Commander Shepard
