The First Post

Hello to anyone reading this, the inaugural post of my blog, it’s a strange thing writing the first post as there is seemingly no one reading this and that is alright.

This place for me is not just a blog where I will write about my learning experiences in Cyber-Security and Ethical Hacking but also as a type of repository where I can put issues I had and links to good articles and guides that I have used, a place to post questions that I can come back and answer at some point and hopefully a place where I can watch my own knowledge grow over the years in the subject.

For my day job I do in fact work in IT for pretty big company but not in Security at all, my role is a Desktop Support Specialist which I have been doing for a few years and before that I worked in Application Support but I realise I much preferred the hardware, networking, security and server-side than I did in apps and through doing Desktop now I have fallen a bit in love with Security and Ethical Hacking which brings me to this site and this point here and  now ?

Whilst studying around fifteen plus years ago I did get my CCNA 1 and 2 certifications but have since forgotten pretty much all of it due to not being involved, the truth is I probably never really took my career seriously and I think that’s probably because of the path I took in Helpdesk to Apps Support and not going the route that actually started my passion for the subject.

I used to copy the programmes that were in the Spectrum and Amiga with versions of BASIC and have forgotten it all so I have been into and messing about with computer for a while, the first PC was in 1995.

Anyways, over the last couple of months I have been getting more and more addicted to cybersecurity and ethical hacking, I’ve been watching tutorials and videos on YouTube, been listening to podcasts, hanging out in Security/Hacking Discord servers and have gone a bit silly getting books and courses that I am at a stage where I really need some structure and a plan of action.

Where do I start?

What do I want to learn?

Is there any real obvious route to the video courses I have got?

Do I want to eventually get my Certs?

Which again brings me round to this blog because I can use it to guide me in where to go next, if anyone reads and thinks I would be better suited learning something else first then they can say.

I do have a laptop that I have set aside to use as the ‘Main’ machine for the learning but will definitely upgrade it at some point as it only has 8GB RAM, 500GB HD, Intel i5 running Windows 10. I have started already in putting some virtual machines on it as well but haven’t properly got going yet as decided to blog about it.

Some of the courses I have to work through are the likes of ones on ‘Ethical Hacking from Scratch’, WI-FI Hacking from Beginner to Advanced’ and loads of other ones on Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking along with ones on Metasploit, Burp Suite and more. With regards to books, there are literally THOUSANDS you can get and I did get about a hundred or so and have yet to decide which order to read to them BUT…

I actually HAVE decided my first course and have actually started it:-

I decided to do a refresher on my networking so I am in a better mindset starting the others, so I’ve started this ‘CCNA Networking Complete’ video course that has the following modules.

 

OSI Model is the section I am at (have only just started it) and I hope to plough through it this coming month (September 2019).

After this Networking course, I will probably do a beginner’s Ethical Hacking one bit along with all the Security and Ethical Hacking I would really like to learn Python too and get started on capture the flag games so will see how that all pans out.

Bear with me whilst i tweak and change the site, will probably go through a few changes in the coming month as more content is added.

That is probably enough for a first post I think, if you have read it then thank you and commiserations ?

P.S. At 41 year’s old I do wonder if I am too old to be starting on all of this but I suppose time will tell.

P.P.S I attended an event yesterday morning called ‘A Hacker, A CISO and A Policeman’ who shared their stories of how they got into Cyber Security, real-world examples and key issues businesses need to address now, will possibly make it my next post.