Donato Onofri is the author of Attacking and Exploiting Modern Web Applications we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Donato: Giveback: leave a trace in the world and share my experience to help people to improve. When Packet reached us to ask to cooperate with them, I take the occasion to achieve the “giveback mission”.
Q: What is the name of your book?
Donato: Attacking and Exploiting Modern Web Applications.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Donato: We spent some weeks by making some Web Vulnerability Research activities to found zero days to show in the book.
Q: What key takeaways do you want readers to come away with from the book?
Donato: Achieve the mindset to commit themselves on facing first-seen (web) technologies to exploit.
Q: Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Donato: Sure, here you go:
https://portswigger.net/web-security
https://www.quillaudits.com/academy
Q. Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Donato: Finding new bugs to exploit is not always easy, but with hard work, commitment, lateral thinking we managed it.
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Donato: It was hard but funny journey, the Packt team will help to facilitate.
Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Donato: This is book is a bit different from others cause it focus on the mindset we share for be successful in Web Security research. Also, the usage of real scenario helps the reader to asses and practically test on what we describe.
Q. What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Donato: Red Team, Reverse Engineering, Adversary Emulation, Penetration Test.
Q. What advice would you give to readers jumping into this technology? Do you have any top tips?
Donato: Experiment without fear any new technologies and start to get experience, the expertise will arrive “by doing”.
Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Donato: Web3, Electron and IoT are the present and the future of our digital society.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Donato: We started by sharing ideas and defining the main topic for each chapters. Then starting the research activities in order to collect the content to populate for each chapter. Due our daily jobs, we perform all these on weekends and sleepless nights.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Donato: Not a favorite above all, I read all the information and new researches from social networks and Internet. If I have to pick one, NetSec.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, mention them below.
Donato: Sure. I am active on LinkedIn, so let’s connect!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zg9ub25vznjp/.
Q: What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Donato: Start by having a good idea of the book’s structure and topic, then focus on planning, planning, planning (and writing, writing, writing).
You can find Donato’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
