The Ethical Hacker Network - Zero Experience

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SudentGA

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Zero Experience - Looking for the right path

« on: October 18, 2011, 01:32:47 PM »

Hello Everyone,
I am a 53 year old student just completing a 2 year Networking Program at a technical college, I transfer next semester to a four year polytechnic University, for a IT degree with concentrations in security and networking. I will be 55 years old when I graduate. I would like to work in the security field, I would like to get their as fast as possible. So I am asking those of you out there who may wish to comment, what you think the BEST career path (including certification path) I should travel would be. I expect to be working on campus next year in an IT capacity, and will have a CCNA in the next couple of months, as I am just completing CISCO networking academy. I would love to be a penetration tester, I see myself advancing up the ladder some, but not to far due to my age (running out of time) but I would like to have the funnest most rewarding career possible for as long as I am playing... all tips helpful..Thank you..pS I have zero IT experience at all at the moment, although I was a military technician both as a Radioman and ET for many years, but got out of the service before Internet kicked in....thanks


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millwalll

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Re: Zero Experience - Looking for the right path

« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2011, 02:29:37 PM »

Welcome,

The best advice i can give you is just learn as much as you can there lots of good resource online.

This site is full of useful links as well helpful people. If you have no experience it depends what you are into more.

Linux
Python or perl
PHP,HTML,mySQL web apps
networks
protocols

There are lots resources on my site that are aimed at new people to security.
http://www.jamierougive.co.uk/

I have also just posted something i wrote in the options thread of how I went from pc engineer to junior pen tester that maybe useful too.

AS far as course go there are many out there it really does depend on how much you want to learn and how much you want to pay. I think a good key here is learning but having a good understanding too.

I have only done hackingdojo and I like it find it useful there is big lab to mess about in. There are also other good courses that I am sure other can let you know more about.


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YuckTheFankees

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Re: Zero Experience - Looking for the right path

« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2011, 08:53:45 PM »

StudentGA,

check out http://www.w3schools.com/ for PHP and HTML. Awesome resource and very easy to follow.


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jbush82

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Re: Zero Experience - Looking for the right path

« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2011, 11:28:33 AM »

While I'm new to this forum, I'm in no way new to Information Security. I am also former military (Air Force) and while the military is the reason I'm in the Information Security career field, I think what made me so successful were the Cisco courses (CCNA) I took while in high school. The material in the CCNA course I think is fundamental and I'm glad to see your spending time on that.

Beyond that, the best advice I can give is to get your hands dirty. Reading a book and studying for certification tests are good, but nothing beats setting up virtual test labs and simply playing with things. In doing that, become very familiar with Microsoft products and get a good understanding of Linux. From a certification path, I would recommend looking at Security+, CEH, eCCPT and OSCP (in that order). There are a number of certifications out there and by no means is this the only way to do it.


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YuckTheFankees

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Re: Zero Experience - Looking for the right path

« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2011, 12:54:42 AM »

I like the certs jbush listed. But make sure you have a decent background in the 5 areas JamieR mentioned. I was completely new to IT in April and I tried to learn some pentesting but it was really hard not having a fundamental background in those areas. I would learn them in this order protocols, networking, linux, php, then python