Hey fellow cyber starters,
I am writing this blog to help anyone who is just starting in cybersecurity.
I’ve been an active member of various cybersecurity communities be it on discord or Twitter and every time I see someone asking for this holy grail question:
“Where should I start learning Cyber Security?”
I see people answering all sorts of resources and personally I’ve guided a few friends in this regard and this is my cumulative and answer to this question.
A lot of time we are looking for a place to learn, we look for content quality, ease of understanding, a friendly platform, the practicality of content(especially in the case of cybersecurity) etc.
It is difficult to find all of these at one place these days as it is hard for content providers to keep up with ever-updating security domain space.
I always used to consume content from different resources(online platforms, youtube, udemy etc.) but sooner or later I felt the need to of having all my learning and practical exercises on one platform without a discontinuity.
Luckily when I was looking around for such a platform back in Dec 2020, I came across a tweet about the “Advent of Cyber 2020” event happening on a platform called TryHackMe.
I decided to spend some time on it, just to give it try. And let me tell you that was a super engaging and insightful learning experience. I was hooked on the platform since then and was regular on it. Combine it variety of user-friendly features that encourage you to learn, such as “Streaks”, “Monthly Leaderboard” and “King of the hill” and “Learning Paths”. They offered a great learning experience and a small boost to your journey as you learn every day.
As if it was not already a great experience, recently TryHackMe added an all-new “Pre Security Path”.
This is a new pathway that focuses on building the concepts required in cybersecurity before you can just into basic cybersecurity concepts.
Now you may ask why is this path even necessary? we can just start with learning about cybersecurity basics. This is where I would point to this wonderful introduction of this path by TryHackMe.
This learning path will teach you the pre-requisite technical knowledge to get started in cybersecurity. To attack or defend any technology, you have to first learn how this technology works.
This learning path will teach you the pre-requisite technical knowledge to get started in cyber security. To attack or defend any technology, you have to first learn how this technology works.
The Pre-Security learning path is a beginner-friendly and fun way to learn the basics. Your cyber security learning journey starts here!
This path contains a whooping 40 Hours of the learning experience, comprising of 15 rooms each of them is bundled into a category and has a gamified structure to it where you read the material and answer the questions to reinforce your learning and even solve a task in form of an animated game(more on that later). And not to forget you even get a badge and certificate once you complete the path 100%.
This path has 5 different sections/tasks which cover the pre-requisite knowledge before jumping into cybersecurity. Now let me review these different sections so you get an idea of what to expect.
- Cyber Security Introduction - This section covers an overview of fundamentals in cybersecurity space mainly a brief overview of domains web and network security.
- Network Fundamentals- This is my favourite section and as the name says it covers network fundamentals. Right from the very basics and let me tell you they act as foundations to most of the security domain.
We start with understanding what networking is and then move to the Local area networks, then we cover the most important concept of network i.e the layering (OSI Model) this subsection also has an actual game embedded in the browser to understand the OSI Model in an interactive manner. We then build upon layering and discuss packets and frames to understand how the data is transmitted across networks and finally we look at network extensions namely port forwarding, firewalling, VPN’s etc.
3. How The Web Works- This section basically covers some concepts from the application layer namely the working of DNS and HTTP, website technologies (like Javascript and HTTP) on a very basic level. And finally to reinforce the learning there is “Putting it all together” room which also has an interactive quiz to test your learning.
4. Linux Fundamentals- An important skill to master as a cybersecurity expert is the familiarity with the Linux Operating system and this section covers some of the most important basics such as File permissions, SSH, Important bash commands etc. One really nice addon you’ll like is a Linux environment dedicated to practising the commands and concepts learned. And it is super easy to connect to either from your local machine or built-in AttackBox which is there in every room.
5. Windows Fundamentals- This section covers Windows fundamentals and is really important to know. Some of the fundamentals you’ll learn here are Windows File system, control pane, UAC, resource monitoring, windows registry etc. And just like Linux Fundamentals, we have a dedicated windows machine we can RDP to and practice concepts.
As I mentioned at the very start this is the answer I would give to anyone starting out in cybersecurity. This couldn’t be any better than actually covering the basics before digging into security domains.
If you want to get started or even wanna go a bit more advance TryHackMe has got you covered, it has content ranging from Informative rooms to Easy, Intermediate and Hard rooms and also Offensive and defensive paths.
For more information use this link and sign up.
Thank you for your time
Cheers!!
