ULTIMATE BEGINNER HANDBOOK TO COMPUTER HACKING ESSENTIALS: LEARN ETHICAL HACKING, PENETRATION TESTING AND BASIC SECURITY: 50+ FREE RESOURCES TO HELP YOU MASTER THE ART OF HACKING (2015)

A BLUNT GUIDE: BECOME AN ETHICAL HACKER

There are a few steps to becoming an employed Ethical Hacker and you want to begin with learning the basics of how a computer works. You’ll want to see how to can hack into other computers and learn the basics of networking. Once you have a good grasp on the technology, you’ll want to head over and grab some certificates, but it does depend on where you get your certificates as to what business will want to employ you.

CERTIFICATES

Both Windows and Cisco provide Security Certificates for their hardware/software components. Both of these places are where you’re going to want to grab your certificates because Windows is the most popular Operating System and Cisco is the most popular hardware industry. Both of these certificates are equally as important, but be sure to start at the very bottom and work towards a basic security certificate. There are companies that look to hire people with the bare minimum of certificates, so don’t feel pressured like you have to be above and beyond, but ideally you’ll want to work towards those certificates as time passes.

PRACTICE

Practice, practice, and practice to get far in the industry, because the more you practice the better you become. Learn a programming language, learn how to develop websites, or just try and solve issues in your own community. There are a lot of way to put your skills to use. The best part is that you learn something extra every time you practice because no two-software configurations are ever the same, and no two computers will have the same issue for the same reason; until you are in a massive organization and then you’ll see it a lot.

CODING

Coding is not 100% crucial to being an Ethical Hacker, but you will go a lot further if you know a single computer language compared to if you know nothing. One of the most common to learn is C++, and its newest cousin C#, which is one of the most widely used languages out there. The more languages you know the better off you are. However, before you start learning code there is one crucial lesson you need to learn; Object-Oriented Languages, Functional-Oriented Languages, and Procedural-Oriented Languages

OOL focuses on objects and will have code that is very readable by most anyone that understands a little bit of code. Objects are simply data that has data inside of it. FOL is a language based entirely around functions and how they interact with each other. Procedural must be coded line-by-line so that the computer compiles the instructions order, which the previous two could have been all over the place. Each language is simply a style of how you interact with the computer. Test one of each out to see what you prefer most and learn that one language. This will open a lot of doors, even if you don’t decide to become an Ethical Hacker, and the more languages to learn the more doors you will open.