The Red Team Field Manual Book Review!

The go to reference guide for Pentesting and CTF games, but should you own a copy?

I was recently bought this book as a gift for Christmas (Thank You!!). I have spent time reading this while completing some CTF’s and wanted to share my thoughts.

First off, the RTFM is not a guide to hacking or pentesting! It is a reference guide for commands in Linux and Windows and being 95 pages long, it packs a lot in!

A lot of the information within the RTFM can be found by googling but there is something about using the manual to look up some of your lesser used commands. This is also useful if you are working on a pentesting and don’t have external internet but need to know the syntax for a perl reverse shell.

There are lists of common ports, reverse shells in so many languages and even a radio frequency list! It has useful scripts written in python, perl and bash which come in handy. It contains so many useful commands that to me, is more intuitive than google!

Sometimes when you are doing CTF’s and researching, i find you learn more by referencing a book. When I’m looking for some things, I don’t want a tutorial or explanation, I’m just looking for the syntax. Guides and tutorials online are good, but they do go in depth to cater to every level.

This is a manual for when you know the technical aspects and just need a reference guide! Something that isn’t trying to teach you what you know, but is there to remind you.

This is definitely a book I will keeping near me when I’m completing CTF’s.

In conclusion, I would really recommend this book for a pentester to keep in their bag or anyone competing in CTF’s. Please don’t approach this as a book that will teach you step by step. Instead, think of it as a killer reference guide to help you along!

I hope you find this book review useful, you can find a link below if you want a copy!

(The link is not a paid referral nor do I receive anything in return for this review)