Guide to CTF Prep/Becoming a 1337 Hacker

Prerequisites and General Advice

Updated site here
***Quick disclaimer: don't do any illegal activities(if you do you will face legal consequences) - only use the sites and labs that are set up for hacking or on companies that have an active bug bounty program. I am not responsible for what you do with this knowledge.*** Cybersecurity is a vast collection of different fields so this guide is a short intro to many different sections of cybersecurity and not a complete guide.
This guide does not necessarily have to be done in order(THE BEST RESOURCES ARE AT THE END). For instance, if you are a web developer(and know either JavaScript, PHP, and/or SQL) and aren't interested in learning things that aren't web security you can skip to the Web week and look through the resources at the bottom for web security practice sites. If you are a computer engineer in low-level languages(C/C++ and/or Assembly), you probably might want to just do reverse engineering and binary exploitation since those will be easier for you to transition into.
I strongly recommend general programming knowledge, although you could do these tutorials without it or while learning programming simultaneously.
This site and this course is a good starting point for complete beginners to programming and there are a ton more online.
I chose tutorials that were hands-on and engaging so readers don't lose interest. CTF stands for Capture the Flag, which are hacking contests that happen online every weekend: CTFtime
A rule of thumb is to try each problem for 20 minutes to the best of your ability-use google, look at man pages and online documentation THEN ask for help.
Most websites like HacktheBox, TryHackMe, picoCTF, and others have Discords and subreddits that are full of professionals.
Another site you may want to checkout is meetup.com, to meet other hackers and coders who can mentor you, or your local 2600 hacker group(i.e. Phoenix).

Installing Linux Virtual Machines

We use Linux since Kali comes with tools needed for attack-defense and jeopardy CTFs.
What is linux?
How to install VM:

• If you are using a Mac
• If you are using Windows
  • Get vmware here
  • Download kali linux iso x64 from here
  • Follow this guide- make sure you select Debian 9 x64 in vmware
  • For the rest follow this or just choose defaults settings hitting enter until you are done.
  • If you are on Windows and think VMs are too slow you can install Linux on a USB, dual boot it with Windows, or live install it as your main operating system. Do not try this on macOS however.
  • Additionally, Windows has WSL2 if you have to use Linux for coding on Windows.
    Make an account and learn how to connect to TryHackMe.com's VPN to hack machines they set up for you. You will need to login to this for every “room”.
  • If you aren't familiar with Linux shell/command-line do this tutorial

Week 1: Let’s Hack!

If you don’t want to learn general cybersecurity or participate in attack-defense CTFs, skip this week. However, I would recommend for beginners to do this since it is important cybersecurity knowledge, hacking things is fun, and it is similar to what a professional hacker does.

• Tasks (short videos then a practice lab)

  • Learn Nmap

  • Learn Metasploit

  • Then hack this Windows machine

  • Web security intro: first 3 videos of this playlist

• Make a picoCTF account and try some web challenges

• If you’re stuck or want to do learn more check out this resource

Week 2: Web and Privelege Escalation Intro

• Hack a webserver
• Learn web vulnerabilities
• Watch some videos and try the CTF

Week 3: Binary exploitation and reverse engineering

• Intro videos(watch up to at least video 6)
• Read the first few chapters of Hacking: the Art of Exploitation book
• Use buffer overflow to help Pingu hack
• Quick intro to x86 assembly

Week 4: Binary Exploitation (sometimes called Pwn) and Reverse Engineering 2

• An easy rev challenge to practice using objdump, gdb, radare2 or ghidra
• A rev challenge that walks through assembly
• Use Pwntools to solve questions labelled “reversing” and “binary exploitation” in the top right in picoCTF

Week 5 (Binary exploitation)

• Continue from video 7 to video 11
• Use the tutorial above to practice what you have learned with a proper education

Week 6

• Follow these tutorials after making an account on hackerlabs to access the materials
• Continue reading Hacking: The Art of Exploitation

Additional resources

More advanced exploitation resources