This is one of the most common questions asked online by those who want to get into hacking.
If your goal is to do something harmful or silly—like hacking Roblox accounts—then I’m sorry, I can’t help you. But if you’re interested in pursuing a legitimate career path such as ethical hacking, penetration testing, or cybersecurity research, I can offer some advice.
Foundation
As with anything, you’ll need a basic understanding of general technology—things like Wi-Fi, networking, and programming languages. When I say “foundational knowledge,” I don’t necessarily mean taking full courses or certifications like CCNA (which I did back in the day). What’s more important is gaining exposure to these technologies through hands-on practice.
You can do this by:
- Participating in Capture the Flag (CTF) platforms like Hack The Box, TryHackMe, and others.
- Joining their Discord communities to discuss boxes and challenges.
- Reading write-ups from other players to learn various techniques.
At first, you might feel lost when facing the challenges, but if you stick with it and keep learning—from friends, write-ups, or community discussions—you’ll gradually become familiar with tools like Metasploit, Kali Linux, and many more. Experience builds over time. You don’t learn everything first and then start doing—you do in order to learn.
How to Ask Questions (Especially Technical Ones)
This part is simple: Don’t ask questions that Google or AI like ChatGPT can easily answer.
For example:
- If you ask, “What is Kerberos?” or “What is WPA?”, you probably won’t get meaningful responses from experienced people. You should look those up yourself.
- But if you’re troubleshooting an issue and you’ve already tried various solutions, then it’s absolutely okay to ask for help.
In short:
- Troubleshooting questions = okay to ask.
- Basic questions = look them up first.
Keep Learning
Once you’ve completed a good number of CTFs and connected with like-minded people, the best thing you can do is keep learning. This field evolves rapidly, and staying updated is essential. Stay curious, stay humble, and stay out of debt!