Starting in Cybersecurity

So you want to get into cybersecurity??

I mean, it’s all the rage, right? Cyberwarriors are the new soldier!

But where to start?

I’ll make this short and sweet, much like myself.

There are two components to getting into anything digital. Only two components. If you want to write programs, create graphics, run projects, or get paid to hack.

The two components are:

  1. Learn
  2. Do

Easy, right? Well, ya. Seriously, you can try to do either one of these, but if you only focus on learning and you never test your knowledge or who your skills by doing, then you’re an academic and people can smell them a mile away. The people who “know” everything but can’t actually get anything done because they really don’t know how to do the do.

You can focus on doing. A lot of people get ahead by doing. That’s because most people don’t do. They sit on their asses and want.

But only doing and not enhancing your skills with knowledge beyond your pragmatic day-to-day crumpets of do causes you to lose out on a significant amount of progress and headway.

You have to do both if you want to break into a new digital industry.

The greatest thing about the digital industry, though, is that learning and doing can by super cheap and even free.

To learn, look for free or super cheap resources. Udemy is cheap. Khan academy is free (I think it is, in part at least). Youtube is free. Google is free (except the parts of you they sell, but we don’t talk about that).

There are so many free resources for learning what you want to learn that it’s not even worth trying to give an exhaustive list.

The next part is doing. If you want to learn cybersecurity, nothing really beats setting up an environment and trying to hack it. Environments are free. Virtualbox is free. Linux is free. Hacking tools are free. Sample vulnerable apps are free. Download these things, set them up, and start hacking away.

It’s going to be so painful at first. Everything is when you have to learn an entirely new skillset. But you have to start somewhere.

Do.

and Learn.

If you don’t stop, you will eventually know.

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