3 Ways to get Hands-On Experience for getting into Cybersecurity
A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds - Percy B. Green
With over half a million Cybersecurity job postings nationwide, there is always a demand for individuals who have hands-on experience in the field. But how can you set yourself apart and gain the hands-on experience you need?
If you're interested in pursuing a career in cybersecurity, here are 3 ways to get hands-on experience and set yourself up for success.
Participating in CTF’s
CTFs stand for Capture The Flag, and they are cybersecurity competitions where participants attempt to find and exploit vulnerabilities in a simulated network or system. These competitions are often held online and can provide valuable experience in a safe and controlled environment. There are also often write ups for them, for which you can read about how other people solved the challenges.
Gaining perspective can help expand your problem solving skills.
Some example CTF platforms are (in order of difficulty)
picoCTF
OverTheWire
TryHackMe
What to Expect?
picoCTF is beginner friendly and has its own Discord chat.
OverTheWire involves a series of increasingly challenging scenarios, and also has help resources. Most of the challenges are CLI focused with different categories as well.
TryHackMe is the next one and is very popular. It consists of rooms and learning paths that gradually introduce users to different cybersecurity concepts and challenges.
Seeking opportunities for Cybersecurity Projects
As it was mentioned in the last post , a lot of times there are opportunities to apply something you’ve learned on the job, even if it's not part of your job duties.
For example, let’s say you are in an operations role dealing on the business side.
You suggest a researched security measure such as MFA or to not “put passwords on post-it notes” to your team. Or even better learn how to automate some processes with Zapier.
You create value and show that you can learn and apply your knowledge on the job.
Another way to seek opportunities is to showcase your learning in your Github. This could be a Cybersecurity project you worked on following a tutorial or documentation, an open source project you cloned or forked and playing around with, the point is to publish and. This could serve as a public portfolio of your learnings.
Self-Learning
The third option here is self-learning.
The thing about the time that we’re living in, is that there is an abundance of information and resources readily available for us. It can be daunting at times, but let’s take a look at 3 options here.
Codecademy, Coursera, and Udemy are just a few of the many websites offering online courses and tutorials on a wide range of topics, which have many free options. Many of which come with labs and hands on exercises.
By taking advantage of these resources, you can gain valuable hands-on experience and practical knowledge, as well as demonstrate your commitment to learning and growing in the tech industry.
As far as the platforms mentioned, they each have their strong suits. Codecademy is completely free (with a paid Pro version), and focused on engineering skills such as coding and developing in frameworks.
Coursera also has the option to take courses for free. They call it “auditing” the course, which essentially means you take the course but don’t get a certificate of completion. One thing that distinguishes Coursera a bit is that their coursework comes from universities and colleges.
Udemy is another learning platform that has tons of free options. This is a marketplace that consists of individual instructors and creators.
This is where my free course is hosted.
Please check it out if you want to learn the fundamentals of the Linux command line. It is only 1 hour long and aims to provide packed value within that hour.
Going over these 3 learning resources can get much more in depth, and deserves a post on its own, keep an eye out for one coming out soon.
In conclusion, the field of cybersecurity is constantly growing, and gaining hands-on experience is crucial for building a successful career in cybersecurity. We discussed 3 ways to gain this hand-on experience.
In the end, you choose which route you’re going to gain the experience and the skills.
What’s important is to be proactive and self-driven in this approach, and if you do so you will go far in your Cybersecurity journey.
Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for next weeks post!