And why you should be looking for people involved in these areas...
Hello! Long time no see; I'm posting this article to give more insight on my talk today at AFCEA in Oklahoma.
If you're coming from the talk looking for the list of resources I've mentioned, here they are! Otherwise, I will give those who couldn't attend the scope of the word.
This list shows 106 active sites today that are still online or active in creating new content for hackers and cyber security freaks like me. Now I am always looking for free resources, meaning this list almost covers all free resources, excluding the top 15 or so; those include paid tiers that offer small slices to those looking for free stuff.
But the rest should help anyone start hacking or learning cyber security.
After you read a bit down below, I'll also post my top 10 list tomorrow on the sites you should be on to learn cyber security.
My talk today was about how the next generation of hackers and cyber security people are learning cyber security without going against the law. Back then, people like John Draper used a 'blue box' to copy the tones made by the pay phones to give him free call service anywhere he was. People like this were looked down upon; this is why I wanted to show those looking for ways to express their inner hacker not to ruin their lives with a criminal record but to keep looking for people and environments that allowed them or wanted them to break stuff and learn why it failed.
You don't have to break the bank to learn the basics.
People assume you need a degree or to attend college to get into cyber security and hacking; we need to BREAK that lie.
Cyber security is something anyone can learn with a laptop and a browser. I began my journey by joining a group of like-minded individuals at fourteen. With the help of Ken Dewey and Johnny Clark, they paved the way for people that want a constantly changing landscape. A way to learn so many things at once, to feel accomplished at the end of the day, and wait for the next day with anticipation.
Invest in your knowledge base
There's a gap between programmers and cyber security professionals working together to learn how attackers get into systems through SQL injection, insecure redirects, or even weak password requirements. We need a way to combine the required roles with cutting back on email chains and lengthy meetings.
The future is the job listing now asking for either a programmer to know vulnerability frameworks like OWASP or cyber security professionals to learn to program and secure how people input their data with serialization, for instance. With the ever-changing landscape and even more people asking for currencies to be completely digitized, we'll need more jobs filled or people to start taking up more hats to put on.
My talk that I gave showed how one could either start or upgrade skills with:
Secure coding
web security
managing vulnerabilities
practicing how attackers could get into servers or websites
and other basics that programmers primarily have
Attacks get more sophisticated daily; either company wants to invest in tools that look for these things in their code bases. Or invest in employees that help everyone, throughout someone's career they'll tell about the short while they worked for a company that helped them get the skills to combat the modern threats today.
Summary and the Slides...
Hopefully, this talk was the first one in a long list of subjects and hobbies I'll speak about in the future. Teaching I believe everyone has a part in, whether it's career advice or technical, we can help the next generation get the skills faster each year. I hope you enjoyed my talk if you attended it, otherwise, I hope these slides and a list of resources become useful to you soon.
Keep on Hackin'!
Jonah.