Breaking into Cybersecurity

Breaking in to the Cybersecurity industry can be difficult, but certainly not impossible. A background in computer science isn’t required although some experience with network administration will be very helpful.

A number of traditional higher education institutions offer various certificate and degree programs at varying rates. Trusted leaders in the industry such as the SANS Institute offer in-depth education at a premium.

Regardless of any formal path a new practitioner may choose there will be countless hours of extracurricular study, research and analysis. This is a lifelong pursuit of improvement. Below are some resources – some paid, others open-source or free – that will keep you busy and your brain full.

You can read up on my recent journey through obtaining a Bachelor of Applied Computer Science degree from SANS University here and here.  Below are a couple of collections of useful links.

Attack Maps
World Wide Attacks – Live
MAP | Kaspersky Cyberthreat real-time map
Live Cyber Threat Map | Check Point
Cyber-attack Map
FireEye Cyber Threat Map
Live Threat Map | Radware
Internet Outages Map

Legal
SEC.gov | Filings & Forms
State Laws Related to Digital Privacy

Lookups
IP Address Lookup | Geolocation
Free Whois Lookup – Whois IP Search & Whois Domain Lookup | Whois.com
Sicehice – Home
Shodan Search Engine
ThreatMiner.org | Data Mining for Threat Intelligence
Robtex
URL and website scanner – urlscan.io
AbuseIPDB – IP address abuse reports – Making the Internet safer, one IP at a time

Organizations
Advancing IT, Audit, Governance, Risk, Privacy & Cybersecurity | ISACA
Information Systems Security Association – ISSA International
CIS Center for Internet Security
CISA Cybersecurity Resources | CISA

5 Whys: The Ultimate Root Cause Analysis Tool
Mozilla Observatory
Content-Security-Policy Header CSP Reference & Examples
Report URI: Generate your Content Security Policy
CSP Evaluator

Compiled/Shared by Dustin Decker

Free Online / In-Person Learning Opportunities:

ClassCentral – https://www.classcentral.com/
Cybrary – https://www.cybrary.it/
SANS Institute – https://www.sans.org/cyberaces/
EdX – https://www.edx.org/
Coursera – https://www.coursera.org/
Codecamp – https://www.freecodecamp.org/
Cyber Games / Activities:

OverTheWire – https://overthewire.org/wargames/
UnderTheWire – https://underthewire.tech/
TryHackMe – https://tryhackme.com/
HackTheBox – https://www.hackthebox.com/
Coding Game – https://www.codingame.com/
Code Wars – https://www.codewars.com/
Crypto Pals – https://cryptopals.com/
PicoCTF – https://picoctf.org/
RootMe – https://www.root-me.org/?lang=en
Malware Unicorn – https://malwareunicorn.org/
Codecademy – https://www.codecademy.com/
DFIR Tools, Resources, Links – https://start.me/p/q6mw4Q/forensics
Tools:

CyberChef – https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
GTFOBins – https://gtfobins.github.io/
Reverse Shell Cheatsheet – https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/blob/master/Methodology%20and%20Resources/Reverse%20Shell%20Cheatsheet.md

Compiled/Shared by Matthew F. https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-d-fein

Dustin Decker

Hello World! My name is Dustin Decker, and I am a full-time security researcher and student with over twenty years of experience as an information systems engineer. I am currently beginning my senior year pursuing my second bachelor’s degree in applied Cybersecurity (BACS) with the SANS Technology Institute. I anticipate graduating in May of 2024. I am a skilled Information Security Analyst with expertise in risk management framework (RMF), systems development life cycle (SDLC), security life cycle, management of a wide range of vulnerabilities and threats, fundamental business analysis, and project management. Skills: Microsoft Azure FedRAMP, Puppet, Artifactory, Django, Riverbed Steelscript, Riverbed SteelCentral NetShark, Vagrant, Chocolatey, MuleSoft, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, BASH Scripting, PowerShell, RHEL, DevOps, Docker, Visual Studio, BeEf, Bucket Finder, TLS-Scan, CeWL, JQ, Masscan, Metasploit/Meterpreter, Zenmap, Nmap, Mimikatz, SpiderFoot, Unshadow + John, Volatility, and personal new favorite: SRUM-Dump. I specialize in providing IT security expertise and guidance in support of security assessments and continuous monitoring for government (FISMA & NIST) and commercial clients. I am comfortable in heterogenous environments with tens of thousands of hosts.