Hacking with PHP

Introduction

The book "Hacking with PHP" by Paul Hudson was published in 2009 and still remains one of the most unconventional guides to the PHP language. Unlike classic textbooks that start with syntax and basics, this book immediately immerses the reader in the world of real attacks, vulnerabilities, and defense methods. The volume is 540 pages, which allows the author to cover both fundamental and advanced topics in detail. The title can be misleading: it is not a manual for hackers, but a deep study of web application security in PHP from an attacker's perspective, so that a developer can better protect their code.

What the book is about

The book is built on the principle of "by contradiction": the author shows how an attacker can exploit typical programmer mistakes and immediately explains how to fix those errors. The main topics include:

• SQL injections — from simple to blind, with examples in PHP and MySQL.
• XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) — all types of attacks and output escaping methods.
• CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) — how to protect forms and sessions.
• Working with files — vulnerabilities in file upload, inclusion, and deletion.
• Authentication and session management — session hijacking, fixation, password protection.
• Cryptography — hashing, encryption, working with OpenSSL.
• Database security — prepared statements, escaping, access rights.
• Network security — HTTPS, SSL, man-in-the-middle attacks.

Each chapter contains real code examples that can be run and tested. The author does not just list vulnerabilities but explains how they work at the level of the HTTP protocol, the PHP engine, and the database.

Who this book is for

The book is intended for confident PHP users who already know the syntax, working with forms, sessions, and databases. Beginners will find it difficult: the author does not explain basic constructs but immediately moves on to attacks and defense. The ideal reader is a web developer who wants to reach a new level of understanding of security and learn to write code resistant to hacking. The book will also be useful for system administrators, testers, and anyone interested in ethical hacking.

What the reader will learn

After reading the book, the reader will be able to:

• Identify and exploit SQL injections in their projects (in order to then fix them).
• Protect applications from XSS using proper escaping and Content Security Policy.
• Implement CSRF protection using tokens and Origin checks.
• Safely work with the file system: upload, inclusion, deletion.
• Build reliable authentication with password hashing (bcrypt, argon2).
• Use prepared statements and PDO to protect against injections.
• Configure HTTPS and work correctly with SSL certificates.
• Understand the principles of cryptography and choose the right algorithms.

Strengths

The main advantage of the book is its practical focus. Each vulnerability is demonstrated with working code that can be downloaded from the author's website. This allows you not just to read the theory, but to see the attack in action. The second plus is the structure: from simple attacks to complex ones, with a gradual increase in the complexity of examples. The third is that the author is not afraid to show the "dirty" details: how injections work at the bytecode level, how to fool filters, etc. This provides a deep understanding, not superficial advice. Finally, the book is written in a lively language, with humor and real stories from the author's practice.

Who it is recommended for

I recommend this book to all PHP developers who want to write secure applications. It will be especially useful for those working with legacy projects (on PHP 5.x) and wanting to understand which holes need to be fixed.