Here you find everything you want to know about hacking, where to start and how can we be a hacker.
I would like to mention that I am still learning and everything I share is my personal experience or opinion.
So, what is a hacker? Someone with high knowledge of computers, networks, programming, and everything related to IT. There are a lot of certified “hackers” and “specialists” out there who can only do a Nmap scan (later I will have on a topic of this) but can not interprets the results. A real hacker just looking at a program or connecting to a network oversees and understands everything at first look.
Mainly there are 2 types of hackers (sorry green and grey hat hackers). White hat hack hackers, normally are IT-Cybersecurity specialist who works for a safer and securer world, they are the good guys. There are the black hat hackers who hack themselves into banks and governmental and military sites for their purposes. The main difference is if you are a white hack hacker you are ethical and doing everything with the permission of a client or a company. On the other hand, black hat hackers do not ask for permission and usually do harmful stuff like stealing credentials like your name, username or password, money,…etc.
A real question is if you are a red team operator and you doing a phishing campaign to deceive people or call them on their phones to get their credentials how are you gonna feel?
Everyone can be a hacker, age, studies and knowledge doesn’t matter. The first thing you have to do is stop. Just stop what are you doing right now? Hacking is something that can be a variety of things.
The first question that should you ask is why you want to learn. To get a job, for fun, to push your limits…etc.
If you want to have fun and learn something just go and try some hacking platform like HackThebox or Tryhackme, also I recommend war games which are little hacking challenges.
If you want to pursue a career, almost 100 % of the cases have to have a college degree. Also, there is the way of the certifications like the OSCP or the CEH. You can maybe nail a job with one of these and good soft skills, but believe me, 10 out of 9 cases companies asked for a college degree when I reached out to them.
Comment: if you want to have a job you have to specialize in one thing. It can be programming, network security, web application security, privilege escalation…etc. Yes, you can be an ace of spades and know everything but takes a lot of time and effort than you think right now. Also, youtube videos about hacking, boot camps, and that kind of things didn’t work for me. Just go for certifications, work for it put in the time and effort it needs and I am 100% sure you will get what you want.
The thing is very simple but not easy. Get a college degree in IT, maybe do some kind of Cybersecurity related course and you will get a job. The other way is to do some well-known certifications such as the OSCP, CEH, CISSP, Security+ or do more of them and try to get a job.
My way is to have a collage degree in ICT, while i am doing my other certifications.My other certificions are gonna be the Ejpt, oswp and the ceh.Also, when i started hacking i had zero knowledge the majority of my knowledge comes from the university and TryHackme which is a super place if you want to gain hands on experience.
A lot depends on where you live, your background knowledge, what you want and which way you choose…but it depends on you. you can get out most of it or nothing. Just find what part of Cybersecurity you like, make a plan, and do it. Hope I could help you all. Have a nice day guys.
