If you’re looking for holiday gift ideas, books remain one of the simplest ways to spark curiosity and support someone’s growth. Whether the person on your list is exploring cybersecurity, AI, engineering, or career development, these titles offer something useful for readers at every stage of their professional journey.
Inside Cyber Warfare, 3rd Edition
Author: Jeffrey Caruso
Inside Cyber Warfare, 3rd Edition by Jeffrey Caruso explores how nation-states, corporations, and hackers engage in digital warfare. It offers insights into the intersection of cybersecurity, geopolitics, and emerging technology.
The Chief AI Officer’s Handbook
Author: Jarrod Anderson
The Chief AI Officer’s Handbook is a comprehensive resource for professionals navigating AI implementation and strategy. It is particularly valuable for Chief AI Officers (CAIOs), offering guidance on defining their role and executing AI-driven business strategies.
The Cybersecurity Trinity
Author: Donnie Wendt
The Cybersecurity Trinity provides a comprehensive approach to modern cybersecurity by integrating AI, automation, and active cyber defense (ACD) into a unified strategy. Instead of addressing these elements in isolation, the author demonstrates how they work together to enhance security effectiveness, offering a practical and actionable framework grounded in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises
Authors: Robert Lelewski and John Hollenberger
Packed with real-world case studies and practical examples, Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises offers insights into how organizations have successfully leveraged tabletop exercises to identify security gaps and enhance their incident response strategies.
The Developer’s Playbook for Large Language Model Security
Author: Steve Wilson
With the adoption of large language models (LLMs) across industries, security teams often play catch-up. Many organizations are integrating GenAI into customer interactions, software development, and enterprise decision-making, often without grasping the security implications.
As LLMs are becoming integral to enterprise operations, The Developer’s Playbook for Large Language Model Security aims to be a timely resource for security professionals.
Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity
Authors: Bojan Kolosnjaji, Xiao Huang, Peng Xu, and Apostolis Zarras
Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity is a practical guide to how AI and machine learning are changing the way we defend digital systems. The book aims to explain how AI can help solve real cybersecurity problems. It does that well, but it’s not for everyone.
AI Agents in Action
Author: Michael Lanham
If you’re trying to make sense of how to actually build AI agents, not just talk about them, AI Agents in Action might be for you. It’s a toolkit in print, aimed at developers and technical leaders who want to build real systems using language models, agent frameworks, and orchestration tools.
Resilient Cybersecurity
Author: Mark Dunkerley
Resilient Cybersecurity touches on nearly every major function of enterprise cybersecurity, from threat detection and identity management to vendor risk and regulatory compliance.
Zero to Engineer
Author: Terry Kim
Zero to Engineer is a practical guide for anyone looking to launch a career in information technology without a traditional college degree. The book draws from the author’s unlikely journey – from being expelled from high school to earning six figures in the tech industry.
The Ultimate Kali Linux Book, Third Edition
Author: Glen D. Singh
Packed with real-world scenarios, hands-on techniques, and insights into widely used tools, the third edition of the bestselling Ultimate Kali Linux Book offers a practical path to learning penetration testing with Kali Linux.
Hands-On Industrial Internet of Things
Authors: Giacomo Veneri and Antonio Capasso
Hands-On Industrial Internet of Things is a practical guide designed specifically for professionals building and securing industrial IoT (IIoT) systems.
Effective Vulnerability Management
Authors: Chris Hughes and Nikki Robinson
Effective Vulnerability Management offers a view of a key part of cybersecurity, showing how practices, tools, and processes can help organizations reduce risk.
CompTIA Network+ Study Guide, 6th Edition
Author: Jeffrey Caruso
This Sybex title is more than just an exam-prep book, it’s a detailed, structured roadmap for professionals seeking foundational networking knowledge that’s both vendor-neutral and certification-aligned.
The guide is organized into 21 chapters that map directly to the five exam domains outlined by CompTIA: Networking Concepts, Network Implementation, Network Operations, Network Security, and Network Troubleshooting.
Cybersecurity For Dummies, 3rd Edition
Author: Joseph Steinberg
If you’re new to cybersecurity and looking for a book that doesn’t overwhelm you with jargon or dive too deep into technical territory, Cybersecurity For Dummies might be a solid starting point. It’s written with beginners in mind and assumes you know how to use a smartphone and computer but not much more. This latest edition, published in 2025, adds newer topics like AI threats, which help keep the material relevant.
Metasploit, 2nd Edition
Authors: David Kennedy, Mati Aharoni, Devon Kearns, and Daniel G. Graham
If you’ve spent any time in penetration testing, chances are you’ve crossed paths with Metasploit. The second edition of Metasploit tries to bring the book in line with how pentesters are using the tool. It mostly succeeds, with some caveats depending on your experience level and what you’re hoping to get out of it.
Learning Kali Linux, 2nd Edition
Author: Ric Messier
Kali Linux has long been the go-to operating system for penetration testers and security professionals, and Learning Kali Linux, 2nd Edition aims to guide readers through its core tools and use cases.
This updated edition introduces new material on digital forensics and reverse engineering, while keeping its focus on practical, hands-on learning. It’s written for people who have at least some familiarity with Linux or command-line environments, but it doesn’t assume deep expertise.
Redefining Hacking
Authors: Omar Santos, Savannah Lazzara, and Wesley Thurner
Redefining Hacking takes a look at how red teaming and bug bounty hunting are changing, especially now that AI is becoming a bigger part of the job.
Attack Surface Management
Authors: Ron Eddings and Melody Kaufmann
Attack Surface Management (ASM) has become one of those buzzwords that gets used a lot but rarely explained in detail. The authors of this book offer a practical guide that aims to change that.
LLM Engineer’s Handbook
Authors: Paul Iusztin and Maxime Labonne
For all the excitement around LLMs, practical, engineering-focused guidance remains surprisingly hard to find. LLM Engineer’s Handbook aims to fill that gap. The authors walk you through how to design, build, and deploy a production-grade LLM application, specifically an “LLM twin” that writes in your personal style using your digital data.
CISA Certified Information Systems Auditor Practice Tests
Authors: Peter H. Gregory and Mike Chapple
CISA Certified Information Systems Auditor Practice Tests offers practical, domain-by-domain prep for the CISA exam, with hundreds of questions covering key objectives and real-world systems audit skills.
From Day Zero to Zero Day
Author: Eugene Lim
From Day Zero to Zero Day is a practical guide for cybersecurity pros who want to move beyond reading about vulnerabilities and start finding them. It gives a methodical look at how real vulnerability research is done.
Data Engineering for Cybersecurity
Author: James Bonifield
Data Engineering for Cybersecurity sets out to bridge a gap many security teams encounter: knowing what to do with the flood of logs, events, and telemetry they collect.
Adversarial AI Attacks, Mitigations, and Defense Strategies
Author: John Sotiropoulos
Adversarial AI Attacks, Mitigations, and Defense Strategies shows how AI systems can be attacked and how defenders can prepare. It’s essentially a walkthrough of offensive and defensive approaches to AI security.
Practical Purple Teaming
Author: Alfie Champion
Practical Purple Teaming is a guide to building stronger collaboration between offensive and defensive security teams. The book focuses on how to design and run effective purple team exercises that improve detection and response and strengthen trust between teams.
The Wireless Cookbook
Author: Bill Zimmerman
The Wireless Cookbook is a project-centered guide to working with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LoRa, written with the Raspberry Pi as the main platform. It is aimed at people who learn through building, experimenting, and breaking things to understand how they work. For security professionals, this approach can be valuable. Wireless networks remain a common entry point for attackers, and hands-on practice offers insight that theory alone does not match. This book gives readers a structured way to gain that kind of experience.