Educational Resources

A question I frequently get from students goes something like “green, what can I do to improve my technical skills and learn about <fill in the blank topic>?”, or “green, how can I get plugged into the infosec community?”

I know there are a lot of sites out there that offer tips about students should go about doing this. However, I find that I can never remember where those resources are, so I thought I’d put together my own list of suggestions, so I know where it is… 🙂

My goal is to update this periodically with items I come across or suggestions provided to me. If you would like to suggest an item to me, reach out using any methods listed in the page footer.

Home lab

Having a home lab is step zero in preparing yourself for learning new material. Many of the free resources available to use are either virtual machines or containers. While I’d like to say you can trust these nice people who make these resources available, as a security professional, you should treat them as potential threats to your environment and take appropriate steps to mitigate that risk.

“Building Virtual Machine Labs: A Hands-on Guide (Second Edition)” by Tony Robinson – https://leanpub.com/avatar2

Virtual machines / containers

After building your home lab, you now have a “clean room” and are ready to start looking for “vulnerable by design” virtual machines or containers to practice with.

Vulnhub – https://www.vulnhub.com/
Metasploitable3 – https://github.com/rapid7/metasploitable3
Windows Evaluation Center – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-lab-kit

Tutorial websites

These websites provide tutorials and training opportunities. Some are free to use, while some are “pay to play.”

Securitytube.net – http://www.securitytube.net/
cybrary.it – https://www.cybrary.it/

“Hands-on” training websites

These websites provide “hands-on” opportunities for you to gain new skills. Some are free to use, while some are “pay to play.” If you’re unable to build a home lab, these websites are an excellent second option to getting practice time.

HacktheBox – https://www.hackthebox.eu/
TryHackMe – https://tryhackme.com/login
MicroCorruption (Embedded Security CTF) – https://microcorruption.com
UndertheWire (PowerShell specific training) – https://www.underthewire.tech/index.htm

Online communities

These communities are helpful for career networking, learning about new training opportunities, and general security-related conversation.

BSides Atlanta (Slack) – https://bit.ly/bsidesatl-slack
Atlanta Cybersecurity Engineers (Discord) – http://bit.ly/atlseceng
Kennesaw State University Infosec Community (Slack) – http://bit.ly/ksu-infosec-community
Kennesaw State University Offensive Security Research Club (Discord) – http://bit.ly/offsec-discord

These groups meet regularly and are security-related in nature. Some are meeting in person, while some are not.