So, this is the first of many cybersecurity training articles on this blog. I’ve recently started my cybersecurity journey about three months ago, and I’ll share all my experiences on this blog with great details.
When you start or switch your career to a new stream or a familiar one, the first rule should be – knowing the basics of the Industry and essential skills needed for the job.
Certification courses, Training and Internships are an excellent way to get ahead of your competition and gain practical knowledge about your job.
As a cybersecurity professional, you need certifications like Comptia Security+ and Internship training programs to solidify your knowledge and advance your career.
I am currently pursuing Google Cybersecurity certificate from Coursera, Internship from the premiere cybersecurity institute ‘Mosse Cybersecurity Institute.’
I also participate in various training platforms like Hacthebox and Tryhackme to enhance my ethical hacking and fundamental cybersecurity skills.
The below guide will give you a sneak peak of Hackthebox from my POV. I’ll share some of the features of this cybersecurity training platform, it’s features and What a cybersecurity can learn and should expect from this platform.
Hack The Box: Dashboard
So, the account creation and login is pretty simple.
After signing into the platform, a detailed dashboard window will welcome you with various cybersecurity challanges, courses and your profile settings.
In the top left pane you’ll see three icons – Home, Profile and Team management – Which I ‘ll not get into right now.
Home and Overview section
Here you will see options like Starting Point, Academy Tracks and Machines.
The Starting point is recommended for beginners and gives access to foundation courses to teach how to use services, such as FTP, SMB, Telnet, Rsync, and RDP.
As a beginner, you will learn ‘Basics of Cybersecurity’ divided into three tiers: Tier 0, 1 and 2.
After the competioin of the course, you will learn how to use Nmap to identify open ports, connect to a MongoDB server and using services including FTP, SMB, Telnet, Rsync, and RDP.
Starting the course
It is pretty easy to start a course. To start a course and start learning you have to connect to VPN and PAWN a machine, which is built-in on their platform.
As shown in the below screenshot, you have to click on the ‘Meow’ and then click on ‘Connect using Pwnbox’ to start a VPN.
On the right side, under machine’s name – Meow, as shown in the below screenshot, click on ‘Walkthrough’ to open the reading manual for these eight questions.
You need to read the instructions and the Walkthrough manual carefully for each below machine to answers questions correctly. Make sure to read the manual carefully as the questions are asked from that manual only.
After that, click on the connect using Pwnbox and wait for sometime for a VPN connection and then click on SPAWN machine to start your tasks.
There will be 8 questions and you need to submit answers to each of them.
So, in my test I went though four machines and answered about 32 questions easily, but you have to read through the instructions ti get answers right.
After that you have to pay for a VIP subscription,
which costs about $14 monthly and $135 annually.
They ask questions like:
What does the acronym VM stand for? What tool do we use to interact with the operating system in order to issue commands via the command line, such as the one to start our VPN connection? It’s also known as a console or shell.
What service do we use to form our VPN connection into HTB labs?
From my POV, as a cybersecurity analyst you can try Hackthebox to enhance your problem solving skills but I don’t bet on this platform to sharpen and enhance your skills drastically.
I love ‘Mosse institute’ approach more than any other cybersecurity institute or platform. The’re more articulate and practical in their approach.
The Starting Point, designed for beginners, delves into cybersecurity basics across three tiers. Navigating a course involves connecting to VPN, tackling tasks, and answering questions. While Hack The Box offers valuable challenges, my preference lies with Mossé Institute for its practical and articulate approach.
In subsequent guides, I’ll delve into Mossé Cyber Security Institute and share insights to aid your cybersecurity journey. Stay tuned for more detailed explorations and recommendations.
I’ll cover Mossé Cyber Security Institute in my other cybersecurity training guides.
