Certifications

Free Training Resources for Cybersecurity and IT Students and Professionals

I will try to keep this list up-to-date with training resources for different areas that could benefit students and professionals of cybersecurity and IT

a year ago   •   5 min read

By 0xBEN
Table of contents

Recommended Learning Path for Beginners

Nobody is born with knowledge of any of this material. If you encounter someone very skilled, know that they've likely been practicing for a long time. It didn't come to them overnight, I can promise you.

It may seem like there's a mountain of materials to learn. There are no shortcuts, so try to enjoy the climb. As long as you keep learning a little bit at a time, you will learn enough that more things will start making sense. The investment of your time will be worth it.

Please also note, you do not need to be an expert in all of these domains. The idea is to build confidence with a broad understanding of these topics.

 If English is not your native language, you might consider slowing the video speed and enabling subtitles (if available), as some of the speakers may talk a bit quickly. 

Systems Administration

  1. Highly Recommended Viewing
  2. Codecademy: Intro to IT -- Learn Interactively
  3. Windows and Linux Admininstration Crash Course by Google
    1. Operating Systems and Command Line Interfaces (Playlist)
    2. Server Administration (Playlist)
  4. Building Virtual Machines with VirtualBox (15:34)
    (enable virtualization in your BIOS settings)

Optional: Professor Messer's A+ Videos (click to expand)
  1. Professor Messer's A+ Training Course Part 1
  2. Professor Messer's A+ Training Course Part 2
    • Note: This is not a recommendation to get the certification unless needed for a job! You can just watch the videos.
    • I linked the Professor Messer A+ content, because it will introduce you to:
      • Hardware concepts
      • Operating systems concepts
      • Troubleshooting methodology (which is useful to build analytical skills)



Computer Networking

  1. Computer Networking: Crash Course (12:19)
  2. The Internet: Crash Course (11:57)
  3. Complete Computer Networking Course by Google (Playlist)
  4. Hands-On Practice: Building a Network in GNS3
    • I'd recommend doing the lab in this order as some of the concepts may be difficult for complete beginners
      • Steps 1, 2, 3
      • Then, steps 6, 7, 8, 9
    • If you're feeling ambitious, you could do the entire lab, but there are some concepts that may be best saved for later

Optional: Professor Messer's Network+ Training Videos (click to expand)
  1. Professor Messer's Network+ Training Videos
    • The Complete Computer Networking Course above should cover almost everything you need to know.
    • You could additionally watch Professor Messer's course here
    • This is not a recommendation to get the certification unless needed for a job!



Web

  1. The World Wide Web: Crash Course (11:36)
  2. How DNS Works (6:04)
  3. HTTP and HTML: Internet 101 (7:06)
  4. TryHackMe: Web Fundamentals (Lab)

Programming

  1. Learn Programming Fundamentals Interactively
  2. PowerShell as Your First Programming Language
  3. Intro to Python
  4. Programming 101: How Programming Controls Hardware, Networking, and More





Systems Administration Resources

Core Systems Concepts

  • Storage
  • CPU
  • Memory
  • Boot procedure
  • System internals
  • Core directories
  • Filesystem hierarchy
  • Windows Registry
  • Event and audit logs

Terminals

  • Linux
    • Bash
    • Zsh
    • PowerShell
  • Windows
    • PowerShell
    • cmd.exe (legacy)

Common Command Line Operations

  • Create, delete, modify files and directories
    • ls , mkdir , cd , touch , nano , cp , mv , rm , vim , Get-ChildItem , New-Item , Copy-Item , Move-Item , Rename-Item , Remove-Item
  • Manipulating file contents and text streams
    • grep , cat , sed , awk , tr , cut , paste
    • PowerShell: -split , -replace , -join
  • Managing processes and services
    • ps , kill , systemctl , service , strace , Get-Process , Stop-Process , Get-Service , Stop-Service , Restart-Service
  • Installing and Uninstalling Packages
    • apt , yum , pkg , pacman , zypper , winget , Install-Package , Uninstall-Package
  • Downloading files and interacting with the web
    • wget , curl , Invoke-WebRequest , Invoke-RestMethod , [System.Net.WebClient]::DownloadFile()

Additional Resources

Free Systems Training





Networking Resources

Core Networking Concepts

Networking Tools

  • ip (ifconfig is deprecated)
    • ip address , ip neighbor , ip link
  • Get-NetAdapter
  • Get-NetIPConfig or ipconfig
  • Get-NetIPAddress
  • Get-NetNeighbor
  • ping
  • arp-scan
  • nmap
  • Wireshark and tshark
  • tcpdump
  • netcat or nc
  • socat
  • nslookup or dig
  • /etc/resolv.conf
  • Resolve-DnsName
  • Get-DnsClientServerAddress
  • Get-DnsClientCache
  • DNS Dumpster
  • MXToolbox
  • netstat or ss
  • OpenVPN
  • Wireguard
  • ssh
  • scp
  • plink.exe
  • netsh
  • iptables
  • pf
  • proxychains
  • Burp (or ZAP)

Free Networking Training





Web Resources

Core Web Concepts

  • HTTP methods and headers
  • Web servers
  • Proxies
  • Directories and files
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • Databases
  • Inputs and parameters

Web Tools

  • Browser developer tools (F12 key)
  • curl
  • wget
  • Invoke-WebRequest
  • Invoke-RestMethod
  • gobuster
  • feroxbuster
  • ffuf
  • Burp
  • ZAP
  • Wappalyzer

Free Web Training





Programming Resources

Core Programming Concepts

  • REPL
    • Read
      • An interpreter reads your input
    • Evaluate
      • An interpreter executes (evaluates) your instructions
    • Print
      • An interpreter prints any output or errors
    • Loop
      • An interpreter loops back to repeat the process
    • Languages with a REPL
      • Python
      • PowerShell
      • JavaScript (Node.js)
    • I highly recommend learning to code first with a REPL as you can run and change your code on the fly without waiting for a compiler or debugger
  • Object-oriented programming (OOP)
  • Data types
  • Variables
  • Flow logic (if/else)
  • Loops
  • Functions
  • Source code review
  • Modifying exploits

Example Scripting Languages

  • Bash
  • JavaScript
  • PowerShell
  • Python
  • Ruby

Example Compiled Languages

  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • Java

Free Programming Training





Cybersecurity Resources

Red

Offense Cheat Sheets

Offense Collections

Offense Training Platforms



Blue

Defense Frameworks

Defense Cheat Sheets

Defense Collections

Defense Training Platforms

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