Beginners Guide on Python in Cybersecurity 2023
Cyber security is one of the emerging technologies that need a high priority of development. We know that the internet and its usage is increasing day by day, and the threat that comes from the internet is also increasing and causing disruptions in families, societies, organizations, and even nations.
Internet or cyberspace is a connected network and every system and sever in that space is connected so that anyone can access it. We are securing all illegal access to all devices in cyberspace by providing security and permissions to each device's access. All such security methods and permissions come under cyber security. Without a proper and well-managed updated cyber security system, all our sensitive data will be lost and taken by illegal hackers and cybercriminals. Please refer to our cyber security threats and methods to prevent them for more understanding.
Here we are discussing cyber security and the implementation of different security methods with python. Python is the most modern and innovative user-friendly programming language which is easy to understand and code for even beginners. With the help of python, even beginners are able to do security methods to prevent cyber criminals and hackers to access sensitive data while using cyberspace. If you like to know about python in detail, please refer to our Python tutorials and Python programs.
1.Malware Analysis with Python
Malwares are one of the serious threat to any system that we use in our daily life and in organizations. Malware analysis is a process of checking and finding any malware present in the system. Professional malware analysts use python language for malware analysis and for automating the analysis.
Python programming libraries such as pyCrypto, pydasm, yara-python are the most commonly used modules for malware analysis.
- PyCrypto: it is the library that is used for decrypting the encrypted malware found in our systems
- Pydasm: It helps the analyst to disassemble the malware to get a clear picture of the internal code.
- Yara python: is for checking and finding the malware using pattern matching.
2. Cyber Security Automation using Python
Python language is the best programming language for automating tasks. In cyber security, we can automate many repetitive tasks using python Scripts that will save a lot of energy, time, and effort, such as
- Vulnerability Scanning
- Network Mapping
- Intrusion detection
We can able to use the python libraries such as Scapy, Nmap, and Metasploit for the automation of tasks.
- Scapy: it is one of the most efficient and powerful libraries, which is used for packet sniffing, network scanning, packet manipulation, and even for packet forging.
- Nmap: Nmap is a tool, which helps us to do network mapping and vulnerability scanning.
- Metasploit: It is a framework, which helps us to do penetration testing and exploit development.
3. Penetration Testing using Python
When we are trying to penetrate our own security systems to check for any vulnerability in that security is called penetration testing. Many analysts use python scripts for automating the checking and finding of security vulnerabilities. Highly popular penetration testing tool Burp Suite has python API. Python has many libraries like pwntools and impacket that are used for penetration testing.
- Pwntools: It is a python library, which helps us in shellcode generation and creates exploit development.
- Impacket: it is also a python library, which helps us to interact with network layers, protocols, and services.
4. Network Security using Python
Network security can be defined as the process of protecting our network and devices from all types of threats coming from the network. Python can play an important role in network security. Python scripts are used for automating network monitoring, finding and blocking threats and anomalies, and blocking illegal traffic. Python libraries like Pyshark, Broccoli, and Scapy can do a role in network security.
- Pyshark: It is a python wrapper, which can be used for the Wireshark network protocol analyzer.
- Broccoli: it is an interface in python for the Bro network security monitor.
5. Threat Intelligence using Python
A process of collecting, analyzing, and detailing all the available data regarding a threat and finding the solutions is known as threat intelligence. We have many python scripts for automating the process of checking, collecting, and analyzing different sources of intelligence data regarding a threat.
Python libraries like BeautifulSoup, Requests, and pyPDF2 can be used for threat intelligence.
- BeautifulSoup: It is a python library that can able to parse XML and HTML pages and documents.
- Requests: It is a python library that can able to send HTTP requests
- PyPDF2: it is for working on PDF files.
6. Web Application Security using Python
Securing web applications from all type of cyber threats come under web application security. Python has various scripts, which can able to automate the web application testings for checking vulnerabilities like SQL injection, Cross-site Scripting etc.
Python has powerful frameworks like Flask and Django which can able to make web applications and it has libraries inside for web application security.
7. Cryptography using Python
Cryptography is the process of making our data secure from illegal access by encrypting and decrypting. We can able to do cryptography to our messages, data, packets, etc. We can use python libraries like pycrytodome for cryptography. It is a python package, which contains things for basic cryptographic uses.
Conclusion
Python has many more applications and uses in cyber security, We just take some of the important uses as mentioning all the uses are beyond the scope of this article. Some of the other uses include
- Cyber security Visualization data and trends using python
- Python for code analysis and reverse engineering
- Python to investigate and react to security threats, etc
