Learn Ethical #acking

 

There are some courses on Udemy that are really good for beginners if you’re willing to go the paid route. It’s a one-time purchase of around $11 and then you never have to pay them again, you own the course. Just look up cybersecurity or whatever you’re interested in and find a  well-rated course of your desired time. Do not pay the full price for ANY course. Courses on Udemy are on sale 80% of the time, just wait until there’s another sale if there’s not already one. It’ll save you a ton of money.  TryHackMe is also a site that gets thrown around here often, I personally haven’t used it much but I think there is both a free and paid version (correct me if I’m wrong).

If you want to go free, there are other options. HackTheBox is another good and free box site. I don’t think it’s as beginner friendly as TryHackMe, but it still has some easy boxes. One community I’ve found that isn’t mentioned much here is Laptop #acking Coffee. They have their own CTF and tutorials on their wiki which are meant for complete beginners (the tutorial, not the CTF). They also have a discord you can join for real-time help. Pretty cool.

All of the stuff I previously mentioned is just for #acking/cybersecurity. It’s cliche, but I think it’s important to also have a basis of coding skills, even if it’s just a bit of Python. If you don’t know any basic languages yet, I recommend FreeCodeCamp. They have tons of beginner-friendly videos that are easy to follow for different languages and projects. Another good resource for programming is Learn X In Y Minutes. This is good if you’re already proficient in one language and are trying to move to another without wasting too much time. It summarizes the basics of each language and how they may differ from others.

Finally, keep your passion alive. Any passion for cybersecurity should be based on a desire to constantly learn, yes. But anyone can get discouraged, especially with the work you’ll have to put in. So, you know what? If you really love Mr. Robot and that’s what got you interested in hacking, go watch an episode before you jump back into work. Buy a book that really gets you hyped to learn about this stuff. I really love all of Kevin Mitnick’s books, they were given to me by my brother and are what got me into cybersecurity. My personal favorite is The Art of Intrusion, which details different stories of different hackers and (for most of them) their downfall. Whatever it is, find something that makes you passionate to work and turn to it every now and then to re-energize yourself.

That’s it. Good luck! Oh and try using a Linux OS if you aren’t already, probably Ubuntu. It’ll get you used to navigate a Linux terminal, though it isn’t required if you can’t run it on your PC for some reason. There are VMs for a reason!

Edit: I forgot that HackTheBox has an “Invite Challenge”. It’s nothing too daunting, but if you’re a complete newbie you’ll have no clue what you’re doing. Just look up a tutorial for the invite challenge online, there are plenty of them. For the part where you get to POST requests, if you’re not running Linux yet just use the Postman chrome extension (or a separate app if you don’t have Chrome). Once you get past that invite challenge it should be smooth sailing as far as I’m concerned. If you’re really struggling feel free to DM me here. Also, there is a HackTheBox VIP subscription which just grants you access to their older boxes and some videos to compliment them.