Introduction to Python Programming for Security Analysts & Professionals

Course Objectives

Working in a hands-on learning environment, guided by our expert team, attendees will learn to:

• Create working Python scripts following best practices
• Use python data types appropriately
• Read and write files with both text and binary data
• Search and replace text with regular expressions
• Get familiar with the standard library and its work-saving modules
• Use lesser known but powerful Python data types
• Create "real-world", professional Python applications
• Work with dates, times, and calendars
• Know when to use collections such as lists, dictionaries, and sets
• Understand Pythonic features such as comprehensions and iterators
• Write robust code using exception handling
• Write Secure Python Applications
• Perform Log File Analysis
• Work with Security Filters, Packet Analysis and related Analytics
• Time Permitting / Bonus Content: Working with RESTful Services

Course Prerequisites

This course is tailored specifically for Security Analysts and others new to Python, who wish to learn and use Python functionality for security-related tasks such as log manipulation or forensics.  Students are required to have some basic programming experience and exposure prior to attending this course. Students should have basic development experience in any programming language, along with a working, user-level knowledge of Unix/Linux, Mac, or Windows.

Course Agenda

Please note that this list of topics is based on our standard course offering, evolved from typical industry uses and trends. We’ll work with you to tune this course and level of coverage to target the skills you need most.

1. An Overview of Python

• What is python?
• Python Timeline
• Advantages/Disadvantages of Python
• Getting help with pydoc

2. The Python Environment

• Starting Python
• Using the interpreter
• Running a Python script
• Python scripts on Unix/Windows
• Editors and IDEs

3. Getting Started

• Using variables
• Builtin functions
• Strings
• Numbers
• Converting among types
• Writing to the screen
• Command line parameters

4. Flow Control

• About flow control
• White space
• Conditional expressions
• Relational and Boolean operators
• While loops
• Alternate loop exits

5. Sequences

• About sequences
• Lists and list methods
• Tuples
• Indexing and slicing
• Iterating through a sequence
• Sequence functions, keywords, and operators
• List comprehensions
• Generator Expressions
• Nested sequences

6. Working with files

• File overview
• Opening a text file
• Reading a text file
• Writing to a text file
• Reading and writing raw (binary) data
• Converting binary data with struct

7. Dictionaries and Sets

• About dictionaries
• Creating dictionaries
• Iterating through a dictionary
• About sets
• Creating sets
• Working with sets

8. Functions

• Defining functions
• Parameters 
• Global and local scope
• Nested functions
• Returning values

9. Sorting

• The sorted() function
• Alternate keys
• Lambda functions
• Sorting collections

10. Errors and Exception Handling

• Syntax errors
• Exceptions
• Using try/catch/else/finally
• Handling multiple exceptions
• Ignoring exceptions

11. Modules and Packages

• The import statement
• Module search path
• Creating modules and Using packages
• Function and Module aliases

12. Working with Classes

• About o-o programming
• Defining classes
• Constructors
• Methods
• Instance data
• Properties
• Class methods and data

13. Regular Expressions

• RE syntax overview
• RE Objects
• Searching and matching
• Compilation flags
• Groups and special groups
• Replacing text
• Splitting strings

14. The standard library

• The sys module
• Launching external programs
• The string module
• Reading CSV data

15. Dates and times

• Working with dates and times
• Translating timestamps
• Parsing dates from text

16. Working with the file system

• Paths, directories, and filenames
• Checking for existence
• Permissions and other file attributes
• Walking directory trees
• Creating filters with fileinput
• Security and File Access

17. Network services

• Grabbing web content
• Detecting Malformed Input

18. Writing secure Python applications

• Parsing command-line options
• Getting help with pydoc
• Safely handling untrusted data
• Managing eval() permissions
• Potential insecure packages
• Embedding code snippets in Python
• Embedding authentication data in Python
• Potentially dangerous operations:
• File access
• Operating system access
• Calls to external services
• Called to external data sources
• Static analysis tools such as Bandit

19. Log File Analysis

• Raw log file manipulation
• Fail2Ban
• Customizing Fail2Ban with Python

20. Security Filters

• SQL-Injection Detection
• ModSecurity CRS filtering

21. Packet Analysis

• Packet Sniffing in Python

22. Analytics

• Security Logging and Analytics
• Attack Detection and Defense
• Python and Spark High-Level Overview

Bonus Content / Time Permitting

23. RESTful Web Services

• What is Flask?
• Developing a Flask Web service
• Mapping resources using URLs
• Mapping resources using HTTP
• Negotiating data content

24. Python application security

• OWASP 2021 Top Ten Overview
• Python Code Access Control
• Options for Protecting Data
• Injection and Python
• Python and Data Validation
• Python and XML Processing
• Python and Known Vulnerable Components
• Python and Serialization/Deserialization