Did you guys start with tutorials? A friend taught you? Just messing around trying different shit? I'm genuinely curious but having trouble finding a middle ground between a boring tutorial (2+2=4) and an extremely technical tutorial that is way over my head. People with experience, how did you learn?
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For me I read books and did my own labs, to practice what I have read and learned.
Nov 30, 2017 02:15 PM
(This post was last modified: Nov 30, 2017 02:16 PM by Smox.)
Read some books, online pdf's and questions you have, google them, thats how you learn, the problem everyone thinks.. is if you learn how to hack you then know everything.. No, when people learn hacking/programming etc they don't stop learning, its ever changing
read
understand what you read
apply what you read to different topic and try to figure out why it matters
practice what you learned in an actual lab.
humble rubyist in a world of pythonistas
...Sitting thousand of hours before their computer, google, try & practice what they want to learn. You have to know the direction you want to go, but first it's important to know that there's much more than just programming^^ and that this is a life if you want to get good at it and that it isn't learned from to today to tomorrow. Go your way, get a solid fundament on knowledge and then search your path. I'm recommending A+ & Network+ before everything else.
Read, Watch Tutorials, and try making own small programs with what you know.
It's the same as learning anything else. Theoretical fundamentals -> practical application -> understanding.
Pick up a book or many books which you may find by using Google. Start understanding the basics and the necessary theory - this is probably the most boring part so you better get some kind of motivation. For hacking, coding should be part of your basics so you can develop an appreciation at the implementation level and also because it allows you to code your own tools if there aren't any already existing ones for your needs. If the learning material is too hard, find out why, put it on hold, then go research more before coming back to it. When you've built your fundamentals, apply it in practice and most importantly, experiment.
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(Nov 30, 2017 02:06 PM)Ihatemyphone Wrote: Did you guys start with tutorials? A friend taught you? Just messing around trying different shit? I'm genuinely curious but having trouble finding a middle ground between a boring tutorial (2+2=4) and an extremely technical tutorial that is way over my head. People with experience, how did you learn?
Start picking them technical books up.
I got 2 shelves worth of technical books, and I am CONSTANTLY swapping the outdated ones out with new ones.
Put aside the white papers, and other technical write ups, It is a daily learning lesson.
Reading has been extremely helpful for me. I am in no way an expert, but books helped me to break things down and better understand how things function at a basic level
Well.. reading is the only option bro, i guess you need some achievements and goals to start learning what you need ;)
I recommend you just learn how to code and debug first before getting too far. Thats where I started. Try learning Java and C++
I watched many YouTube tutorials, went on forums, asked friends, but most importantly - just practicing.
Start by learning doxing or phishing for example.
Then move on to RATs and malware.. Then Exploits.. So on
A good place to start is installing a distro like Kali, going over the tools list, figuring out what they all do, and just read the man/-h pages for them. Then grab an easy lab or two, and try things out. If they you still can't get it, there's hundreds of tutorials on youtube that'll help.
Dec 15, 2017 08:09 AM
(This post was last modified: Dec 15, 2017 08:12 AM by Nomad.Null.)
(Dec 15, 2017 12:02 AM)dumbrascal6969lol Wrote: A good place to start is installing a distro like Kali, going over the tools list, figuring out what they all do, and just read the man/-h pages for them. Then grab an easy lab or two, and try things out. If they you still can't get it, there's hundreds of tutorials on youtube that'll help.
I disagree with diving head-first into what is possibly the least beginner-friendly Linux distro on the planet as a way of learning how to hack. 90% of the tools in the Kali distro are unused or have very specific and/or highly technical use-cases.
You SHOULD download and install Kali as a virtual machine so that you have those tools available to you, but what you need to do is start reading, like everyone has been saying. There are a few books I recommend that you can start with, and begin working in some labs/ctf environments. The learning process for hacking largely consists of repetition and persistence, literally beating your head against a brick wall until it finally sticks.
These are my recommendations: - If you want to start learning Linux for learning Linux's sake, start with Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora. There are many flavors our there, but these are the most user-friendly, beginner-friendly, and best supported out there. Kali is based off the Debian distro, which is one of the oldest and most stable, but is very minimalistic and better-suited for building servers. It also does not have extensive driver support, and I frequently ran into problems with obscure driver issues while using it . Kali comes with way too many tools and you will quickly become overwhelmed. You can download it as a VM, but don't just go through the list of tools one-by-one to learn them. That would be tedious, entirely unhelpful to you, take way too long, and is just insane.
- Check out these books: The Hacker Ethos (I wrote this for beginners), The Hacker Playbook 2 by Peter Kim, Metasploit Unleashed (Free), Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking by Georgia Weidman
- Video Tutorials for penetration testing can be found on https://www.cybrary.it/
- Use Google to research about vulnerabilities and advanced concepts.
- Reference exploit-db.com for reliable, safe exploit code that has been reviewed and approved by the Offensive Security team. It will take you a while before you understand or are ready to use any of this stuff, but I want you to keep it in the back of your mind because it's a good resource.
- Learn a programming language: I recommend starting with something beginner-friendly with good documentation and plenty of powerful code libraries to use. For this, I suggest Python (3). You will also benefit from learning the Linux BASH scripting language, which allows you to create tools that interact with the Linux environment. Here are some books/resources to try: Blackhat Python, Python for Penetration Testers, Bash Beginner's Guide, readthedocs.org (Amazing code documentation for EVERYTHING)
- Build a hacking lab of your own using machines from vulnhub.com
- Join some public Capture the Flag events/sites. Some I recommend are https://www.hackthebox.eu, https://lab.pentestit.ru, and https://hackthissite.org
I want to warn you ahead of time about the difference between interpreted (scripting) languages, and compiled languages. Python is an interpreted language...very high-level, easy to learn, easy to use, and suitable for writing tools and automating tasks, but they usually not as fast as compiled languages and cannot or are not meant to interact with the hardware of a computer. Compiled languages (such as C) tend to be more strict, lower-level (Low level means it works directly with or very close to the hardware level), requires a lot more code to do simpler things, and are much more difficult to learn; however, they have the benefit of being much faster than interpreted languages, allow you to interact directly with the hardware, and are much more difficult for someone to disassemble, meaning they cannot easily read and understand what your code is doing or how it was built.
Compiled languages are usually what malware is built with. Additionally, understanding how to read and write code in a compiled language, and also understanding the Assembler language (machine code) will enable you to understand how programs work and interact with the hardware. This is very powerful for a hacker because someone who understands what a program does at the machine level enables them to see flaws in the programs themselves. This is what leads to discovering bugs and building exploits. If you recall the WannaCry Ransomware incident in May, that was because of a bug in the Microsoft Windows Operating System that has existed since 2000. The NSA found it at some point, but nobody else did until 2017 when it was broadcast to the world by the Shadow Brokers. If you want to get to that level, then once you are ready, read Hacking: The Art of Exploitation and The Rootkit Arsenal: Escape and Evasion in the Dark Corners of the System.
You need to be willing to dive into the highly technical material and very boring reads. The fundamentals of hacking are the most important concepts to learn. You can anticipate being bored with a lot of things you read, but occasionally you encounter some gems. You will unfortunately have to go tapping into the Google mine of bullshit to eventually pull out those diamonds.
For some additional help, here are some blogs and RSS feeds I recommend subscribing to and reading through for some pretty awesome tips on hacking and other news.
That should be plenty of material to keep you busy for years. Good luck. 🤝
Malware Dev & Grey Hat available for contract work. DM if you need me.
OSCP, OSCE, OSEE, OSWE, OSWP, CEH, CISSP
Yeah, I've been around a while
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(Dec 15, 2017 08:09 AM)Nomad.Null Wrote: I disagree with diving head-first into what is possibly the least beginner-friendly Linux distro on the planet as a way of learning how to hack. 90% of the tools in the Kali distro are unused or have very specific and/or highly technical use-cases.
You SHOULD download and install Kali as a virtual machine so that you have those tools available to you, but what you need to do is start reading, like everyone has been saying. There are a few books I recommend that you can start with, and begin working in some labs/ctf environments. The learning process for hacking largely consists of repetition and persistence, literally beating your head against a brick wall until it finally sticks.
These are my recommendations:- If you want to start learning Linux for learning Linux's sake, start with Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora. There are many flavors our there, but these are the most user-friendly, beginner-friendly, and best supported out there. Kali is based off the Debian distro, which is one of the oldest and most stable, but is very minimalistic and better-suited for building servers. It also does not have extensive driver support, and I frequently ran into problems with obscure driver issues while using it . Kali comes with way too many tools and you will quickly become overwhelmed. You can download it as a VM, but don't just go through the list of tools one-by-one to learn them. That would be tedious, entirely unhelpful to you, take way too long, and is just insane.
- Check out these books: The Hacker Ethos (I wrote this for beginners), The Hacker Playbook 2 by Peter Kim, Metasploit Unleashed (Free), Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking by Georgia Weidman
- Video Tutorials for penetration testing can be found on https://www.cybrary.it/
- Use Google to research about vulnerabilities and advanced concepts.
- Reference exploit-db.com for reliable, safe exploit code that has been reviewed and approved by the Offensive Security team. It will take you a while before you understand or are ready to use any of this stuff, but I want you to keep it in the back of your mind because it's a good resource.
- Learn a programming language: I recommend starting with something beginner-friendly with good documentation and plenty of powerful code libraries to use. For this, I suggest Python (3). You will also benefit from learning the Linux BASH scripting language, which allows you to create tools that interact with the Linux environment. Here are some books/resources to try: Blackhat Python, Python for Penetration Testers, Bash Beginner's Guide, readthedocs.org (Amazing code documentation for EVERYTHING)
- Build a hacking lab of your own using machines from vulnhub.com
- Join some public Capture the Flag events/sites. Some I recommend are https://www.hackthebox.eu, https://lab.pentestit.ru, and https://hackthissite.org
I want to warn you ahead of time about the difference between interpreted (scripting) languages, and compiled languages. Python is an interpreted language...very high-level, easy to learn, easy to use, and suitable for writing tools and automating tasks, but they usually not as fast as compiled languages and cannot or are not meant to interact with the hardware of a computer. Compiled languages (such as C) tend to be more strict, lower-level (Low level means it works directly with or very close to the hardware level), requires a lot more code to do simpler things, and are much more difficult to learn; however, they have the benefit of being much faster than interpreted languages, allow you to interact directly with the hardware, and are much more difficult for someone to disassemble, meaning they cannot easily read and understand what your code is doing or how it was built.
Compiled languages are usually what malware is built with. Additionally, understanding how to read and write code in a compiled language, and also understanding the Assembler language (machine code) will enable you to understand how programs work and interact with the hardware. This is very powerful for a hacker because someone who understands what a program does at the machine level enables them to see flaws in the programs themselves. This is what leads to discovering bugs and building exploits. If you recall the WannaCry Ransomware incident in May, that was because of a bug in the Microsoft Windows Operating System that has existed since 2000. The NSA found it at some point, but nobody else did until 2017 when it was broadcast to the world by the Shadow Brokers. If you want to get to that level, then once you are ready, read Hacking: The Art of Exploitation and The Rootkit Arsenal: Escape and Evasion in the Dark Corners of the System.
You need to be willing to dive into the highly technical material and very boring reads. The fundamentals of hacking are the most important concepts to learn. You can anticipate being bored with a lot of things you read, but occasionally you encounter some gems. You will unfortunately have to go tapping into the Google mine of bullshit to eventually pull out those diamonds.
For some additional help, here are some blogs and RSS feeds I recommend subscribing to and reading through for some pretty awesome tips on hacking and other news.
That should be plenty of material to keep you busy for years. Good luck. 🤝
Just list the proper Book already 😝
https://hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=5102103
TrueDemon is one of the FEW people you can actually take advice from without worry its gonna be fucked up.
I STRONGLY recommend his book for anyone who is starting in the field, he had me proof read it, and it is fucking top notch.
@OP take what True has to say to heart, he will not mislead you in anyway. 🤝
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