Newbie needs help

[Ishmael_]

Hi guys, I just found out about this community and it looks really cool. I was wondering what the active users in this community thinks a good age to start learning to hack is. I also wanted to know where to start. I don't feel like spending money on something I'm not sure will stick with me in the future. Thanks

[Rkiver]

Hi there, welcome to the forums.

First thing, learn to use the search functions available online. I don't say that to be cruel, I say it because learning how to find information out is INVALUABLE.

Now why do I say that firstly? Because using the search function would have brought you to a full topic already loaded to bear with EVERYTHING to get you started: 

 

 

So, I hope that gives you some ideas, and also, spending some money on books is never a bad idea. There's a great one on Penetration Testing called just that. "Penetration Testing, A hands-on introduction to hacking" by Georgia Wiedman published by No Starch Press. A great read.

 

 

[Dave-ee Jones]

Hoi there, Ishmael!

I don't know if there's an ideal age to start learning pentesting, it's just one of those things you can start learning on the side of anything else, really.

A genuine curiosity for pentesting is a better learning experience than having pentesting as your daily job. I don't know about everyone else here, but I've had pentesting on the side of my occupation, just as an extra learning experience that adds to my current job. It's vastly helped my knowledge of my own job, while also adding to my curiosity of pentesting, so it's been a good experience so far. However, not everyone can say that, it depends on your occupation.

On 3/8/2018 at 9:02 AM, Ishmael_ said:

I don't feel like spending money on something I'm not sure will stick with me in the future.

I completely understand where your coming from. For me (adding on to what I said earlier) pentesting is more of a hobby, so I don't mind spending a few dollars here and there, but I wouldn't go ham and buy every Hak5 product there is (I currently have the Packet Squirrel and Bash Bunny), and since it adds to my learning experience for my occupation it makes it a bit easier to spend money on helping my growth a bit.

Before I touched these forums I hardly knew anything about Linux. I knew that the Linux mascot was a funky penguin, and that was it. Oh, and Mac was an extension of Linux. But now, I can (almost) comfortably use Kali Linux and get around fine, although Google helps a fair bit with this. 

But yeah, as @Rkiver said it never hurts to research things, especially for pentesting as it is a broad subject that covers anything related to IT, really.

You gotta remember that pentesting is short for penetration testing which means finding exploits in code and hardware - but to do that you have to know what the code and hardware is, otherwise how are you going to know where the weaknesses lie?

But yeah, check out the forum post mentioned by @@Rkiver and have a read of that because that's the post we point everyone to that are looking to start learning pentesting. I'll be honest though, I never read it. It probably has points in there that I've had in my own learning experience, though, and it probably has points I haven't come across yet - it's all a big learning experience. Pentesting gets bigger and bigger the more technology changes and gets bigger, so it's just forever learning, forever figuring out what the new tech does different to the old tech.

Anyway, good luck and happy learning!