Cybersecurity: Theory, Practice, and Ethics#
A free, open-source textbook for university courses and professional certifications
Devharsh Trivedi, Ph.D., CISSP
Department of Computer Science, Bowie State University
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6374-7249
Last updated on 06/17/2026 at 21:12:25 EDT
This open educational resource bridges rigorous theory and hands-on practice across cybersecurity, cryptography, networking, offensive and defensive security, digital forensics, incident response, governance, privacy and law, and emerging topics. It is layered to serve readers from high school through postdoctoral level and is mapped to the CISSP, Security+, CEH, CISA, and CGRC certifications.
Start Here#
Introduction – course mapping, what every chapter contains, how to cite this book, and the license.
Preface – about this book and how to use it.
Begin the material with Part I: Foundations (Chapter 1: Introduction to Cybersecurity).
Use the sidebar to navigate the twenty chapters and the appendices (command reference, glossary, certification mapping, ABET and Bloom’s mapping, and companion publications and code).
A live, continuously updated web version of this book is available at https://book.com.puter.tips/
This textbook is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Readers around the world