Welcome to my Hacking Adventure!

I've been wanting to create a blog for awhile now. Honestly, I don't know where to start, but I'm going to do it anyway! My blog will be about my cyber security journey. I want to share my learning progress and writeups I've done and will do more of from TryHackMe CTFs and Hack The Box. I also want to share any resources I come across that I think are useful and could help others starting out in cyber security.

My Journey Thus Far

My passion for cyber security started when I joined a cyber security course from CodePath that was provided for students at my university. I saw an announcement for it one day and thought "Why not?", it was free and I could learn something new. Also, this all started during the same time that the covid pandemic began and everything switched to remote learning. It made it quite the challenge.

This all began during my last year of college. I was already taking four other classes for my degree (I majored in Information Technology) that semester, so why not add another! Once the course started, right off the bat, we got into CTFs (Capture The Flag games). I had no idea what that was beforehand, but after getting into it I enjoyed it a lot! As I progressed through the course I continued to gain more interest in this field. When the semester was over I researched for more learning materials and then I applied to get a minor in Secure Computing and Network at my school.

Side Note: I will say and this is my personal opinin, I learn so much more on my own than in school! Everyone learns and processes information differently. The way I learn best is on my own reading or watching videos. However, I learn the best when getting hands-on practice. I didn't gain much from my security minor besides some basics that were already taught in my major, there was just an added emphasis on the security aspect. Ever since I started learning on my own, I've learned so much more than what I've learned in school.

Continuing with my journey, I discovered Hack The Box over the summer after my semester of learning the basics of CTFs. When I started with Hack The Box, I didn't realize it was more geared towards those who had a bit more experience with CTFs. It was a huge challenge for me going through the machines and not knowing what to do. I ended up having to look through write-ups to get the gist of things (I highly recommend using them when you first start and get stuck but don't rely on them all the time, only use when you are stuck for an extra boost). In the end, even with slight help, I was able to complete several machines and I felt very accomplished.

That same summer my school's CS/IT department sent out an email about a penetration testing competition. The requirements were to do several Hack The Box machines and create write-ups of them. I completed the requirements and sent in my application and in the next week or so I got accepted to be apart of the team and the competition season lasted for a whole semester. It was a chance for students to gain real-world experience finding weaknesses in an emulated corporate environment.

During the semester after that summer, things started to change for me. There was a family emergency I had to attend to and I became a caregiver during my last year of school. I had to switch up my priorities to focus on finishing my degree and being a caregiver. Luckily all my courses were remote, so I was able to be home. Due to this sudden change, I didn't have as much time to focus on my cyber security learning. Once I graduated, I was still focused on caregiving, so I didn't get a chance to start applying for jobs.

Now it's 2022 and I'm continuing my cyber security journey! I'm so happy to get back into the hang of things. I've started focusing on learning on platforms like TryHackMe, studying for the CompTIA Security+ exam, and began my job search. I know soon everything will align for me and a path will open for me to get started in my ideal career path. As of right now, I'll keep on gaining knowledge and sharing what I've learned!

I hope you enjoyed reading my first blog and getting a little snippet into my journey so far. I'm looking forward to sharing more and I hope this could help others as well!