Truth & Tech

I love to learn. I think it’s a natural part of growth. But learning is more than just an opportunity to grow. It’s an opportunity to help others; something that they may need or benefit from. It’s an opportunity to equip; preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. And I would guess, that I will probably be taking classes, courses, or at least reading something new for the rest of my life.

Just as every other area of life, security requires knowing what tools to learn about and having the right tools to learn about them. So, I thought it may be helpful to list some resources I’ve been benefitting from lately. The following includes both paid (though usually as inexpensive as I can make it for myself because I’m cheap) and free resources. So here are the tools to learn and the tools to learn about in the cybersecurity world.

Current tools

Packt – They offer some free ebooks that range the spectrum of IT. I’ve yet to make it through one of their books, but there’s a wealth of knowledge for free here. You can download the books for future reference.

YouTube– Everyone probably already utilizes this tool on some level. But knowing what to look for with such a vast content library can be hard. So here are the people I’m following: Network Chuck, Professor Messer, The Cyber Mentor, Cyberspatial, and Simply Cyber. I’ve really been impressed with all of these but especially Network Chuck and Cyberspatial.

Pluralsight – This weekend only, Pluralsight is offering their entire library for free.

Udemy – I don’t know how much time I’ve spent on Udemy lately, but it’s been a lot. Classes range in topics from business to personal interests like how to sing, to IT. I’ve been going through Mike Meyer’s A+ certification course and Heath Adams’ Practical Ethical Hacking. Both are excellent.

Rumble Network Discovery – It’s worth knowing what’s on your network and the important details as to what each device has on it.

HackTheBox Academy– Largely a site designed to turning hacking into a game and to teach the process, they actually have an “academy” that teaches the basics. I’ll be integrating these into what I’m picking up elsewhere.

SecurityTube.net – Think YouTube but with a focus on CyberSecurity.

Kali Linux – This is one of those no-brainers for people interested in penetration testing and cybersecurity. I’ve unfortunately been a Windows only guy for a long time and need to expand my horizons so am branching out. Parrot OS is an alternative that I’ve considered looking at once I get the Linux fundamentals down. One way to learn it is through the Linux Journey or OvertheWire.

Books: Designing and Building Security Operations Center, Effective IT Service Management: To ITIL and Beyond!, Learn by Practicing – Hack & Detect.

Future Tools

Hacking games: I wanted to automatically jump into these types of websites, but you really have to have more knowledge than I had. HacktheBox, Try Hack Me, VulNHub are ones I’ll look into once I’m done with the stuff above.

Education and Training: Lots of good options out there. I tried above to list some that I’ve already been digging into. TCM security has been my favorite so far. Penetration Test Academy, Free Code Camp.

Bounty Hunting: Bounty hunting is when you get paid to find flaws in other systems as a hacker. Intigriti, Hackerone, and a long list of other options from Bugcrowd.

Books: Learn Python 3 the HARD WAY, Human Hacking, Hacking Web Intelligence, The Pentester BluePrint, Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking, The Art of Invisibility, Roadmap to Information Security, Learning by Practicing – Hack & Detect, Physical Red Team Operations, Locks and Locksmithing, The Dark Web Dive, Darkweb Cyber Threat Intelligence Mining, The Art of Intrusion, Hacking the Hacker, The Art of Deception.