Get started with security
This is a post in which we will cover the bare minimum requirements of what you need to be proficient in security.
Start with the basics - Notetaking
You may be wondering where you start but there are plenty of resources available online where you can get started the whole point of getting into the field is to start moving forward and taking notes along the way. There are plenty of tools available to save your notes depending on your preference such as:
Make sure that you take notes of everything that you find interesting or you think is something that you consider helpful in the long run. It can be anything from a GitHub repository, a YouTube video or even a post on Twitter. In essence, everything that you now or your future self will find useful at a point in time.
Networks
As a beginner in the field, one of the most basic skills in understanding networks, which I can’t underline enough is networks. You should at least know how networks work and understand the difference between private and public addressing. One of the best resources I’ve used to understand the core concepts was:
- Professor Messer Network+ Training Course playlist - Youtube
- Cisco Network Academy - online courses - Netacad
It makes a huge difference once you know about the main services and you can associate them easily off the top of your head!
- 25 - SMTP
- 443 - HTTPS
- 80 - HTTP
In the beginning, these numbers may not mean much to you but as you delve into the subject you’ll understand more and have a hunch of how each service has to be viewed, tackled, scanned and eventually exploited.
A great resource for understanding the different ports is https://www.speedguide.net/, using the search function on the top right, you can put in a port number (such as the above three examples), and the website will then present all known information regarding that specific port, and will list both common software that frequent any ports being searched, as well as known malware associated with the same ports.
Scripting
This is also an essential skill that takes time to master depending on what you are interested in, to be fair. I personally am no expert, but google is!
However, throughout my career I came across a few tasks to automate mostly working with PowerShell and SQL made me approach various challenges with a bit more confidence. But, don’t worry there are plenty of places where you can get some of understanding yourself!
Some of the resources I came across that were useful and I personally used were:
The above are the two primary resources that I used to better my understanding of the core elements, remember it’s always easy to start with something simple that is human readable so anything along the lines of would do just great for beginners:
- Python
- SQL
- PowerShell
Practice, practice, practice
Remember the first 3 points we just discussed? Yes, those 3 mentioned above!
- Notetaking
- Networking
- Scripting
If you repeat all of them for a few minutes every day or even read something on the internet via Twitter, Google or whichever news feed you prefer you will eventually learn and be more accustomed to the core skills.