EH-Net

Hi everyone, I'm new to this site and I had just one question. I'm not looking for anyone to take me under there wing or teach me how to. All I'm looking for is direction on where to start, what basic/beginner level books I should read, and what are the fundamental skill i should have before advancing.

Now I'm not saying I'm above advice, tips, tricks, and someone looking at me and going hey retard you're fucking up quite being stupid.  Just really need a place to begin.

Thanks for any comments or advice. 

Hi AMP,

Welcome to the forums! This is a professional forum and worrying about anyone flaming you for asking for help doesn't happen here.

Your question asked is actually the most common question we get here and we have no problem helping out. Your post was just a tad vague in what your wanting, but I'm assuming your wanting to learn where to start to eventually land a job doing Ethical Hacking.

A good thread to start with the subject would be here (http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,8319.msg45534/#msg45534). There are lots of solid links on the thread that will help you out (:

Happy new year!
Kris

Welcome and Happy New Year AMP !
You'll find a lot of threads here about "where to start".
By the way it depends also on your skills, maybe you have some knowledge in programmation (C, python..), linux skills ?

I can see where I was a tad vague on what I was wanting, yes landing a job doing Ethical Hacking would be fantastic, that would all depend on if I can ever come up with the money to afford to go back to school for it which is something I really wanna do.

To answer you're question n3r, I personally have no real knowledge in programming, or with linux, I know sounds really bad that I wanna learn this and have no real skills of any kind. The only people I know with the ability to make a computer do a strip tease as my wife puts it live on the other side of the country and I haven't spoken to them in years. So sadly to say I'm trying to do this with nothing.

So the advice I can get from everyone is greatly appreciated.

I'd start by searching the forums. There will be lots of posts that discuss strategy, books and give advice. It's a very common question.

Determine where your current strengths are and build on those.  There are many attack vectors involved with ethical hacking and you cannot be in expert in all, or maybe you can in which case you are probably a robot and won't need to be asking such questions :D 

For instance what is your base computer background?  Have you done system admin work, helpdesk?  Network admin?  Desktop support?  etc...  Are you interested in breaking people's websites and then telling them how to prevent such breaking in the future? 

Many successful folks that have gone the EH route had started somewhere in IT, whether it be a programmer or a Systems admin.  So some skills in the IT field will help determine your focus in Ethical Hacking.

I'm not sure what my interests are, I know I've been wanting to learn programming but never knew which one to start with.  As for determining where my strengths are, I'm not sure how to tell where they are so I can build on them.   

Have you ever read counter hack reloaded?

No I haven't read it, but I'm sure I can get it or find it for download.

It's a very good book. It might help you see the bigger picture an the overall anatomy of an attack and potentially defending that attack. It might give you some insight into figuring out if you want to be on the offensive side, defensive side, IR/IH etc.

Thanks I'll make sure to get it.

I will add the "Stealing the network" series of books.  They cover a variety of subject matters from owning the box to owning an identity.  The Identity one was a great read, done in a more fictional sense so it was a fun book to read.