WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:10.740 Welcome everyone to my presentation discussion on how you can develop a student mindset to help propel your life into becoming a penetration tester. 00:10.740 --> 00:24.200 My name is John Helmes and I'm currently a penetration tester for Nordstrom headquarters based out of Seattle, Washington, as well as an adjunct professor for the City University of Seattle, based out of Seattle, Washington. 00:24.200 --> 00:27.420 I teach cybersecurity courses there as well. 00:28.360 --> 00:50.060 So, today's talk is going to discuss about how I got to that portion of my career and how I can basically use that framework and help out the masses to allow you to use this framework to apply it to yourself and help get you into a career in pen testing. 00:50.060 --> 00:53.640 So, with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. 00:55.240 --> 00:58.900 So, this is the agenda for today's talk. 00:58.900 --> 01:01.700 We're going to have a quick introduction about myself. 01:01.700 --> 01:07.900 It's going to list out just some of my background and discuss of how I got into pen testing. 01:07.960 --> 01:13.580 Then we're going to have a general overview of, in my own words, what pen testing really is. 01:13.580 --> 01:19.080 We're going to talk about how you can develop the student mindset and what that really means. 01:19.080 --> 01:22.700 And it's not, you know, a traditional academic student mindset. 01:23.140 --> 01:36.140 And then we're going to look at some roadmaps about, you know, ways of how you can get into pen testing and what type of jobs you can look at that will help carve out a path for you to get into pen testing. 01:36.340 --> 01:43.520 As well as some different jobs titles that may or may not have pen testing as part of that job title. 01:43.520 --> 01:53.600 We'll also talk about some speed bumps that you can fully expect while you're trying to get into pen testing or even cybersecurity in general and talk about how we can work around some of those speed bumps. 01:53.600 --> 01:59.780 We're also going to talk about some of the educational things that you might see, you know, for pen testing jobs. 01:59.780 --> 02:06.260 The requirements such as a bachelor's, a master's degree, some jobs even, you know, ask that you have a PhD. 02:06.900 --> 02:15.440 And then we're going to talk about certifications, talk about the cost for certifications and just the amount of time that you're going to need for each certification. 02:15.440 --> 02:22.820 So we can break it down about how much money it's going to cost per month if that's a certification that you would be interested in. 02:22.820 --> 02:39.180 And then we're going to talk about how, you know, once you try or once you become a pen tester, how we can maintain that student mindset and how we can maintain the motivation to keep learning and to keep teaching, right? 02:39.180 --> 02:44.040 Because as cybersecurity professionals, our job is to help others, right? 02:44.040 --> 02:51.580 And in pen testing, it's a very small community and we really rely on each other to help each other learn and to grow. 02:51.580 --> 03:00.980 And then to finish up the talk today, we're going to talk about just some issues that we're seeing in the cybersecurity field in the COVID era. 03:00.980 --> 03:12.220 And what I mean by that is we're going to look at some of the speed bumps of what I see happening in the world as it pertains to getting into pen testing. 03:12.220 --> 03:17.840 So we're going to talk about how you can kind of maneuver around some of those COVID issues. 03:17.840 --> 03:21.200 To start off, let's talk about myself. 03:21.200 --> 03:22.500 My name is John Helmes. 03:22.500 --> 03:26.440 As I said, I'm a penetration tester for Nordstrom headquarters based out of Seattle, Washington. 03:26.440 --> 03:28.680 I also am an adjunct professor. 03:29.020 --> 03:31.280 However, I didn't always used to be that. 03:31.540 --> 03:35.480 I actually started out as a naval engineer. 03:35.680 --> 03:41.360 I was in the US Navy for four years and I didn't do anything really tech related. 03:41.360 --> 03:43.600 I was a small boat guy. 03:43.600 --> 03:49.820 I worked on small boats, worked on the mechanics for them and everything and did small boats operations. 03:50.060 --> 03:59.160 Once I got out of the Navy, I decided that after a couple different career moves, that I was going to go into tech. 03:59.160 --> 04:02.760 So I decided to get a bachelor's degree in information technology. 04:02.760 --> 04:06.400 And while doing that, I got a job as a help desk specialist. 04:06.400 --> 04:16.740 I moved up vertically within the company that I started out as a help desk specialist for and became a firewall guy, did a lot of networking. 04:17.380 --> 04:25.320 And then while I was pursuing my master's degree, I wound up becoming a cybersecurity engineer for a DoD contract. 04:25.600 --> 04:34.720 And then from there, I became an ISSC for a bigger DoD contract and a much, much larger network. 04:34.720 --> 04:50.220 And then once I got the ISSC job, I actually was finishing up or had just finished my master's degree and wound up becoming a teacher at a small university based out of San Diego, where I was living at the time. 04:50.440 --> 04:54.340 And then from there, I was there for about eight months as the ISSC. 04:54.340 --> 04:58.060 And then I pivoted into red teaming for the DoD. 04:58.060 --> 05:00.420 And I did that for about eight months as well. 05:00.500 --> 05:04.580 And then from there on, I went and became a pen tester for Nordstrom. 05:04.580 --> 05:06.700 And I've been up in Seattle ever since. 05:07.220 --> 05:11.600 So as you can see, I didn't have, you know, a very technical background. 05:12.480 --> 05:18.920 However, during that time, which was the span over about four years, I was continuously going to school. 05:18.920 --> 05:23.260 I was getting one to two or three certs every year, if you averaged it out. 05:24.560 --> 05:26.900 And I just kept growing and I kept learning. 05:26.900 --> 05:34.240 And I was fortunate enough that while I was in the help desk role and getting my bachelor's degree, I was introduced to Kali Linux. 05:34.440 --> 05:48.160 And also learned that, you know, Kali Linux was a very popular operating system used by penetration testers, then learned what pen testing was and was just completely engaged in that topic and have been ever since. 05:48.160 --> 05:57.920 And we're going to talk a lot about that, about how, you know, you can use an untraditional path and just use passion towards getting towards pen testing to get into pen testing. 05:57.920 --> 06:05.600 Some other things that I've done as well along my journey is I've been a content writer for CompTIA. 06:05.600 --> 06:17.920 If you've taken any test questions through CertMaster for the NetworkPlus exam, or for the PenTestPlus exam, then there's a good chance that you might have had a question that I wrote. 06:17.920 --> 06:20.520 I also currently write content for Medium. 06:20.520 --> 06:22.720 I have my own blog that I maintain through there. 06:22.720 --> 06:29.180 I've been a technical project manager for various different projects throughout my career. 06:29.180 --> 06:33.040 I also do bug bounty when I have time. 06:33.480 --> 06:36.760 I have an account on HackerOne and BugCrowd. 06:36.760 --> 06:41.240 I also do my own research for AWS. 06:41.340 --> 06:48.020 I'm actually currently working with a large publisher to put out a book based around that topic towards the end of this year. 06:48.580 --> 06:51.460 And as it says down there, I'm a pending author. 06:51.480 --> 06:55.660 So as you can see, I started out in a not very technical position. 06:55.840 --> 07:03.220 However, I was fortunate enough to realize early on in my academic journey and in my tech journey that I really liked pen testing. 07:03.220 --> 07:10.400 And I took that and harnessed that energy to push myself forward and turn that energy into a passion. 07:10.400 --> 07:21.700 And that's what this discussion and this talk is going to be about is how we can turn that idea and that want into a passion and how to really roadmap that passion. 07:21.700 --> 07:27.000 But before we do that, let's go ahead and talk about exactly what pen testing is. 07:27.200 --> 07:36.700 So penetration testing, which is also known as pen testing or pen test or ethical hacking, it's an authorized simulated attack on a client organization. 07:36.800 --> 07:44.060 This organization has signed you on and says, hey, we need you to evaluate our company by actually discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities. 07:45.160 --> 07:46.800 So what does that really mean? 07:46.800 --> 07:48.720 Well, it's more than just hacking things, right? 07:48.720 --> 07:49.880 It's a business. 07:49.980 --> 07:51.560 It's a business approach. 07:52.020 --> 07:59.440 So I wrote this quick little analogy example, right, where pen testing is like you're trying to find something, right? 07:59.440 --> 08:04.180 And you know what you may or you may or may not know what you're trying to find, but you're trying to find something, right? 08:04.180 --> 08:07.800 So we'll say something is X, and that's the scope, right? 08:07.800 --> 08:12.480 And then the scope of pen testing scope is what you're allowed to ethically hack. 08:12.880 --> 08:15.000 So X can be whatever, right? 08:15.080 --> 08:17.780 And we are trying to get to X. 08:17.780 --> 08:19.460 And then we get to X, right? 08:19.460 --> 08:23.900 We finally in a pen test, let's say X was a target system, we get onto the target system. 08:24.160 --> 08:27.680 And now we find out more about that target system. 08:27.940 --> 08:28.380 Right? 08:28.380 --> 08:29.820 And this target system is X. 08:29.820 --> 08:33.160 We find out more about that target system and more about the environment that it's in. 08:33.160 --> 08:38.380 And we find other machines and targets and hosts and all sorts of things, right, that are associated with X. 08:38.380 --> 08:39.600 So we have Y and Z. 08:40.000 --> 08:46.240 And we start moving to Y and Z and starting finding out more about Y and Z and the environments that Y and Z are in, right? 08:46.260 --> 08:48.960 We like to think of that as like lateral movement, right? 08:48.960 --> 09:00.820 Because that's a big portion of pen testing is once you get on, once you actually get onto a machine that you've done your research, discovery, enumeration, and then you get persistent access, we find out more about X and the surrounding components of X. 09:00.820 --> 09:05.520 So when you get to Y and Z, that's lateral movement. 09:05.540 --> 09:07.820 And that's a key thing that I want you to remember. 09:07.840 --> 09:21.900 Because on this next slide here, it says, imagine you have to write out a comprehensive report that details every step that you made before going to X, during getting on on X, right, and X is a system, and then after. 09:21.900 --> 09:28.500 And right, we use the term web search here, because in the previous slide, it mentioned web search as an example. 09:29.340 --> 09:36.820 So now you have to illustrate the why and the what and the impact of everything that you did, right? 09:36.820 --> 09:47.820 You have to this and then you have to give an illustration of how to fix it, and how we can do a better job next time. 09:47.820 --> 09:54.900 And we meaning the pen testing company, which would be you and the client organization, right? 09:54.900 --> 09:56.660 So that's pen testing. 09:56.660 --> 09:58.580 Pen testing is a lot of research. 09:58.700 --> 10:04.980 It's a lot, a lot of discovery, and a little bit of technical capabilities. 10:06.600 --> 10:09.620 So this is straight from a blog of mine. 10:09.620 --> 10:12.240 It's the reality of pen testing, right? 10:12.240 --> 10:25.140 I think I always think that, you know, from the outside looking in, a lot of times, individuals might think that pen testing is this, you know, capture the flag kind of exercise when it's anything but that. 10:25.140 --> 10:29.500 It's really a advanced business process, in my opinion. 10:30.140 --> 10:37.020 So here it says, the reality of pen test is banging your head against a wall and looking at systems that are typically locked down fairly well. 10:37.020 --> 10:47.240 Shout out to all the big companies and small companies and medium companies out there that are locking down their systems and, you know, making pen testers jobs a nightmare at times. 10:48.180 --> 10:50.520 You know, that's really what it is. 10:50.520 --> 10:55.520 You're looking for issues in systems that are probably not there. 10:55.520 --> 11:00.720 However, you, as the pen tester, need to verify that. 11:00.720 --> 11:05.820 And when, you know, we think about verification, we think about quality assurance, we think about quality checks, right? 11:05.820 --> 11:08.180 We're doing a quality check for a system. 11:08.180 --> 11:10.160 That's essentially what pen testing is. 11:10.160 --> 11:14.840 We are highly technical quality assurance people. 11:15.320 --> 11:16.840 That's essentially what we're doing. 11:16.840 --> 11:18.340 And I'm not downplaying pen testing. 11:18.340 --> 11:26.300 Please don't let that steer you away because as we're going to see throughout this entire discussion, it's a very, very interesting field to be in. 11:26.300 --> 11:36.140 However, to note, penetration testing is probably 70% report writing and research and only actually 30% hands on. 11:36.340 --> 11:45.580 So, you know, if only being in a technical aspect is what, you know, engages you, then this might not be the field for you. 11:45.580 --> 11:52.000 However, you know, let's keep looking and, you know, perhaps throughout this roadmap, you'll see something that piques your interest. 11:52.000 --> 11:59.480 Because there's a lot of different things that you can do that involve pen testing that just isn't part of the pen testing job title. 11:59.820 --> 12:01.840 So why do we pen test, right? 12:01.840 --> 12:03.880 Well, we have this white hat, gray hat, and black hat. 12:03.880 --> 12:05.260 The white hat guy is the good guy. 12:05.260 --> 12:06.520 That's the penetration testers. 12:06.520 --> 12:21.840 Those are the guys that are out there getting paid to authorize, or I'm sorry, getting paid to hack a system with authorization and provide a report that shows the landscape of the client, right? 12:22.000 --> 12:28.340 That shows the threat landscape, that shows all the issues and parts that can be exploited and things like that. 12:28.340 --> 12:34.020 The gray hat, I always like to say, is the individual who is in between the white hat and the black hat. 12:34.020 --> 12:45.100 That's the guy who, you know, might hack the system and patch it and then tell you, or they might hack the system and tell you, even though they weren't authorized. 12:45.620 --> 12:49.360 You know, you see a lot of different gray hats out there. 12:50.300 --> 12:57.680 The best way I always like to say it is that the gray hat is the individual who would hack your system to feed their family if they needed to. 12:58.220 --> 13:01.540 You know, it's that kind of like moral conflict kind of thing. 13:01.540 --> 13:09.100 So there's a lot of different ways of how a gray hat can, you know, can hack a system and what and exactly what that entails. 13:09.100 --> 13:13.420 So, you know, please go out and research different gray hat areas. 13:13.420 --> 13:22.060 However, the black hat is a very definitive answer where they are the malicious cyber criminals that keep the white hat employed, so to speak. 13:22.600 --> 13:30.080 And then the other big reason for pen testing is because we need to pen test for compliance, right? 13:30.120 --> 13:39.600 That's why we got a pen test, because organizations have to meet a bare minimum in order to operate, right? 13:39.700 --> 13:45.260 And if they can't operate, well, then they can't generate revenue and money and stuff like that. 13:45.260 --> 13:48.940 So we have to pen test so that they can make money. 13:52.360 --> 14:02.120 So for those of you that get into compliance-based pen testing, a lot of times you'll hear like, hey, we just need you to do this and this and this so that we can pass our compliance checks. 14:02.120 --> 14:03.500 And that happens a lot. 14:04.040 --> 14:05.760 And there's nothing wrong with that. 14:05.760 --> 14:09.240 However, do know that just because something is compliant, it doesn't mean it's secure. 14:09.240 --> 14:13.840 It just means it's at the most secure level that it has to be to operate. 14:13.840 --> 14:20.960 So I'm going to move my face window here just a little bit. 14:21.040 --> 14:27.160 I'm going to move that around for the rest of the presentation just so that it doesn't take up important parts of the slides. 14:29.020 --> 14:30.600 So now let's look. 14:30.600 --> 14:32.600 Becoming a penetration tester, right? 14:33.000 --> 14:36.360 So these are some of the topics that we're going to talk about. 14:36.360 --> 14:38.520 We already mentioned that at the beginning a little bit. 14:38.520 --> 14:46.180 So we're going to talk about the mindset, being curious, expanding your network, and how we can just maintain our skill sets and then eventually give back. 14:46.180 --> 14:49.900 Because again, like I said, this is a small field. 14:50.620 --> 14:55.740 And it's almost kind of like a almost everyone knows everyone sort of kind of vibe. 14:56.600 --> 15:02.400 So it's really, really crucial that you understand that it's a community where we all like to help each other. 15:03.880 --> 15:06.020 So the student mindset, what does that mean? 15:06.020 --> 15:12.840 It doesn't necessarily mean you need to go into academia and constantly be getting degrees and things like that. 15:12.840 --> 15:18.760 What that means is that you need to develop a framework in your head where you're constantly eager to learn, right? 15:18.940 --> 15:23.260 And you're continuously setting goals that you want to achieve. 15:23.260 --> 15:24.620 You're setting milestones, right? 15:24.620 --> 15:25.980 You know where you want to be. 15:25.980 --> 15:28.680 So you have to make a roadmap to get there. 15:28.680 --> 15:30.540 So how do we do that? 15:30.540 --> 15:32.240 Well, we have to stay out of our comfort zone. 15:32.240 --> 15:35.820 And we have to understand that that's, that's what it's going to be. 15:35.820 --> 15:37.280 And that's how it's going to be. 15:37.640 --> 15:43.700 And the other thing is, is that we have to have people help us get there, right? 15:43.700 --> 15:45.620 We have to be humble to do that. 15:45.640 --> 15:52.140 And we have to find mentors that will ensure that we are doing what we need to do to get where we want to go. 15:53.060 --> 16:05.040 And the other big thing, and I always like to say this, is that when we're on our journeys into becoming pen testers, and when we're on our journeys to be better pen testers, don't ever try to seek validation. 16:05.380 --> 16:15.180 You know, this isn't about getting recognition for having, you know, the most certs or the most degrees or the most CVEs or the most exploits and, and things like that. 16:15.180 --> 16:19.260 It's about helping out everyone, right? 16:19.260 --> 16:23.260 And that's why I say, not seeking validation, but seeking education, right? 16:23.260 --> 16:29.300 You're, you're out there seeking to help and educate others while also educating yourself. 16:29.300 --> 16:36.580 And the biggest thing too here is this last point here where it says, leave fear in the rear view mirror. 16:36.580 --> 16:45.380 What that means is there are going to be plenty of times in your journey and in your career where you're going to be afraid of something, right? 16:45.380 --> 16:49.680 Or it's going to startle you, and it might draw you back a little bit. 16:50.220 --> 16:53.880 Don't do that because otherwise it's pushing you back into your comfort zone. 16:53.880 --> 16:58.660 And if you don't stay out of your comfort zone, you're not going to be able to grow. 16:58.680 --> 17:03.340 So you really have to look at fear and just move past it. 17:04.920 --> 17:08.140 So let me move my window a little bit. 17:08.620 --> 17:10.860 We have to be curious. 17:10.860 --> 17:12.940 Penetration testers have to be curious. 17:12.940 --> 17:17.360 They have to be eager to want to learn and understand how things work, right? 17:17.360 --> 17:19.480 You also have to be creative. 17:19.680 --> 17:26.800 That's a big, big fun portion of this, this career field, in my opinion, is that we get to be creative, right? 17:27.360 --> 17:35.640 We get to tinker around and look at things from a different angle, and we get to write up things that might not be so traditional. 17:36.700 --> 17:40.540 And there's just so many ways of how you can be creative in this field. 17:41.420 --> 17:58.760 But the other thing is too, and it falls in with the being humble and also seeking to learn and leaving fear behind, is that you have to be willing to dive into anything and be hungry to learn new things, right? 17:58.760 --> 18:04.080 And as it says down here, being a pen tester is about being a jack of all trades, but a master of none. 18:04.080 --> 18:10.680 And what I mean by that is that a pen tester has to, again, be a tinkerer and want to do a little bit of everything. 18:11.100 --> 18:14.660 However, you're not going to be a master of anything. 18:14.660 --> 18:19.180 You might have a specialty where you focus on a particular topic. 18:19.460 --> 18:27.720 However, that doesn't mean that you're going to master it because, as we have seen, technology is continuously evolving and continuously changing. 18:27.720 --> 18:31.080 So if you master something one day, it might change the next day. 18:34.960 --> 18:37.500 And let me change this slide. 18:45.780 --> 18:48.060 So what's the next portion? 18:48.360 --> 18:49.520 Growing your network. 18:49.520 --> 18:57.220 This is a big, big thing that I feel is not talked about a lot, right? 18:57.540 --> 19:02.040 This is one of the things that's going to really help push your career field forward. 19:02.040 --> 19:04.400 It's what helped push mine forward. 19:05.760 --> 19:13.560 I essentially got into cybersecurity because I had a couple certifications and I had a degree. 19:13.560 --> 19:19.420 However, I didn't know a lot of individuals in cybersecurity that could help me in. 19:19.420 --> 19:31.840 And eventually, I met someone who was an ISSO and basically hired me on to be part of their DoD contract as a cybersecurity engineer. 19:31.840 --> 19:37.880 So with that being said, that was a big, big help to get me into cybersecurity. 19:39.140 --> 19:43.340 So from there, obviously, my career pushed forward. 19:43.440 --> 19:46.100 So growing your network is a big portion. 19:46.100 --> 19:48.180 So where can you go to grow your network? 19:48.180 --> 19:55.720 Well, for those of you in school, there's a lot of times your professors, they may actually be engineers that are working in the field. 19:55.720 --> 19:58.120 Make sure that you network with them. 19:58.120 --> 20:00.640 Your fellow students, right? 20:00.640 --> 20:03.400 They may actually be already in the field. 20:03.400 --> 20:12.660 There's a lot of degree programs at night schools and adult educational schools where a lot of the individuals are already in the field. 20:12.660 --> 20:15.860 They're just getting a degree to help push their career forward. 20:16.100 --> 20:18.080 LinkedIn is another great resource. 20:19.080 --> 20:23.580 You can build a network on LinkedIn incredibly fast. 20:23.580 --> 20:36.780 And especially now, and we'll talk about it later, but during the COVID era, LinkedIn has been a godsend, so to speak, to help others get into cybersecurity or at least find some kind of position in tech. 20:37.300 --> 20:39.140 Twitter is another good one. 20:39.520 --> 20:40.740 Even Facebook. 20:41.320 --> 20:42.000 You never know. 20:42.000 --> 20:49.940 You may have a friend from five years ago that may be in cybersecurity now that may be able to help you find a position that you're looking for. 20:51.820 --> 20:53.640 Mentors and mentees. 20:53.640 --> 21:08.760 You may actually have someone that you were helping out that's already in cyber and they just look up to you, and they may be able to find someone to help push you into a position that you want to be in, that will get you into pen testing. 21:08.760 --> 21:11.120 And then obviously mentors. 21:11.120 --> 21:17.180 You want your mentors to be someone who is in the field, and that someone can help you get into the field. 21:17.260 --> 21:27.300 Conventions, such as the ones now, during the COVID era, all this stuff is online, and we're able to network fairly easily. 21:27.300 --> 21:29.440 And a lot of these conventions are all free. 21:29.440 --> 21:30.440 They're all online. 21:30.440 --> 21:35.520 It makes it pretty streamlined to network. 21:35.520 --> 21:38.580 And then the other big things are internships. 21:38.600 --> 21:43.800 I know with COVID, internships were canceled for a lot of companies, and it did affect a lot of people. 21:44.420 --> 21:51.560 However, when internships become a thing again, it's going to be a really great way for you to get your foot in the door somewhere. 21:51.560 --> 21:53.360 And then, of course, on-the-job training. 21:53.800 --> 22:02.920 Any place that is offering on-the-job training, whether it's cheap labor or if it's free, if it's going to help you get to where you want to go, then you need to take it. 22:02.920 --> 22:10.160 And that plays in part of being humble, is that understanding that you may not jump right into pen testing. 22:10.200 --> 22:12.200 You may have to start somewhere else. 22:12.200 --> 22:13.060 And that's okay. 22:13.060 --> 22:16.680 There's nothing wrong with that, because it's all about the journey. 22:17.780 --> 22:23.220 Now, we've talked about our network, so now let's talk about how we can grow some of our technical skills. 22:23.220 --> 22:29.780 Because that is, while it may not be the huge portion of pen testing, it is a big portion. 22:30.260 --> 22:36.040 And we need to make sure that we can illustrate our technical skills. 22:36.040 --> 22:37.340 So how do we go about that? 22:37.340 --> 22:40.220 Especially when we're the outside looking in. 22:40.320 --> 22:47.260 So I have listed here some ways of how we can test our technical skills. 22:47.260 --> 22:49.760 So try HackMe, HackTheBox, and VulnHub. 22:49.760 --> 22:59.260 These are areas where you can access vulnerable machines to test your technical skills and to actually evaluate yourself. 22:59.260 --> 23:13.580 As well as read write-ups on older machines that are provided on these websites that allow you to learn how other people were actually hacking the machines, and it helps you develop a methodology in your head. 23:14.780 --> 23:18.800 And then another good way is just reading books. 23:19.080 --> 23:26.940 Going on Amazon and buying a book every so often, or going into your local bookstore, whichever way is most comfortable for you. 23:26.940 --> 23:28.600 Just buy any book. 23:28.680 --> 23:31.660 And I can't recommend enough books. 23:31.740 --> 23:35.760 If you think it's going to provide some value to you, then read it. 23:35.760 --> 23:42.960 However, obviously, because we're talking about pen testing, I always recommend anything that's security or computer science related. 23:43.340 --> 23:49.720 And then another great way is to get on to bug bounty platforms such as HackerOne and BugCrowd. 23:49.720 --> 23:55.360 So these are places where you can sign up and use their platform to hack actual websites. 23:55.360 --> 23:59.860 And if you find bugs, you report these bugs to the companies. 23:59.860 --> 24:12.320 And that's a great way to actually learn in real time how to pen test a actual live website, and to also understand what companies are looking for. 24:12.320 --> 24:26.200 So it allows you to assess and evolve your technical skill set in a real environment, while also teaching you a little bit of the business side, because you have to submit reports to the vendors. 24:26.200 --> 24:27.620 And then programming. 24:28.220 --> 24:35.640 Programming is a big thing, because it teaches you that analytical skill set, which falls in line with the pen testing mindset. 24:35.980 --> 24:40.060 And there's plenty of books and free online resources that you can use for that. 24:40.060 --> 24:50.220 So now that we talked about how we can grow our network and our technical skill sets, right, we've learned how to work with people, and what we need to do with people. 24:50.300 --> 24:54.820 And we've learned about the technical side and how we need to grow our technical skill set. 24:54.820 --> 25:04.400 The next portion would be okay, well, I want to start looking at jobs and start, you know, putting some feelers out there and seeing if I can get an interview or something. 25:04.400 --> 25:07.880 However, then you might hit a roadblock or a speed bump or something, right? 25:07.880 --> 25:16.520 And they may you, you may get back from HR saying, Oh, I'm sorry, you know, we're going to be going with another candidate, or something like that. 25:16.520 --> 25:16.820 Right. 25:16.820 --> 25:24.280 And so these are some of the speed bumps that I see individuals trying to get into pen testing, and trying to hurl over. 25:24.280 --> 25:29.740 So lack of experience in security programming, or just anything that's technical, right? 25:29.740 --> 25:31.460 Those are going to be some of the big issues. 25:31.460 --> 25:40.620 And if you get that, then you need to backtrack a little bit, and build up your technical skills a little better using the resources that we just talked about. 25:40.860 --> 25:42.920 Lacking certifications, right? 25:43.600 --> 25:52.380 A lot of times we want to get the big juicy certification, and we don't realize that there's other smaller certifications that can help build up to that. 25:52.380 --> 25:59.400 And those smaller certifications will also help get us positions that will lead us into pen testing. 25:59.400 --> 26:00.160 Right? 26:00.160 --> 26:02.720 And we'll talk about that here in a couple slides. 26:03.460 --> 26:09.200 However, you know, if you're starting out, don't go after the big certifications, right? 26:09.360 --> 26:12.900 Go after the smaller ones, so that it can help build your career. 26:13.380 --> 26:15.620 And then lack of job openings, right? 26:15.620 --> 26:21.200 I'm from a small town in North Carolina, where there is no pen testing jobs. 26:21.200 --> 26:23.920 And there's, I don't even know if there's any cybersecurity jobs. 26:25.560 --> 26:28.080 I couldn't get a job there if I lived there. 26:28.220 --> 26:35.460 So, however, now I live in Seattle, Washington, and you know, there's more jobs than there are people. 26:35.460 --> 26:40.800 So, you know, you have to follow where your career is. 26:40.800 --> 26:47.620 And if that changes where you are geographically, then you know, you that might be something that you have to do. 26:48.340 --> 26:50.300 And then a lack of motivation. 26:51.020 --> 27:09.900 Burnout is a very real thing in the pen testing field, because we're constantly engaged, we're constantly learning, we're constantly doing a lot of things where, you know, if you're a pen tester, or a very passionate cybersecurity individual, you're probably running and gunning 12 plus hours a day. 27:09.900 --> 27:14.480 And it's really easy to get caught up in all that and not take a break and smell the roses. 27:14.480 --> 27:30.980 So make sure that when you develop your roadmap, and when you are looking at ways of how to get where you want to, to where you're at, and where you want to be, that you make sure that you create a realistic timeline that allows for some buffer for you to relax. 27:31.160 --> 27:39.820 Because, you know, while it is it is a fun journey, and it's really easy to get tied up into it, your body and your mind can only handle so much. 27:39.960 --> 27:41.900 So make sure that you take a break. 27:45.160 --> 28:00.580 So now that we understand some of the speed bumps, we understand how we can work with people to try to get into pen testing, and we've learned some different areas of where we can grow our technical experience without actually even being in the field. 28:00.580 --> 28:05.100 Let's talk about some positions that we can get before we even get into pen testing, right? 28:05.100 --> 28:19.680 Because if you're hiring, trying to get into pen testing, and just keep getting, you know, denied letters back, then it's time to change your mindset, and think about a different position that will eventually get you into the pen testing position that you desire. 28:19.760 --> 28:26.060 So, as I started out in a help desk, and then I went into firewall administration, right? 28:26.060 --> 28:28.580 So I went more into like networking sides of things, right? 28:28.700 --> 28:31.660 Those are positions that are going to help push you forward, right? 28:31.660 --> 28:42.360 And the help desk position is a great position to be in, because it helps teach you a little bit about everything, technical wise, and how, you know, a system is set up within an enterprise. 28:42.360 --> 28:47.160 It also allows you to solve technical problems with people. 28:47.520 --> 28:52.720 And a lot of those people may not be technically competent, right? 28:52.720 --> 29:01.220 So it teaches you how to solve these problems in a less technical way, which is a great skill set to have. 29:02.200 --> 29:04.580 So those are some positions that you can get. 29:04.660 --> 29:08.160 There's a bunch of different security specialist positions that you can get. 29:08.300 --> 29:13.260 Like I was doing vulnerability management, I've done some information assurance stuff. 29:13.480 --> 29:16.260 Those are some good positions that you can get into. 29:17.680 --> 29:22.920 There's SOC, just being a security engineer, working in the cloud, right? 29:23.160 --> 29:29.880 These are all going to be great positions that are going to be great to have on your resume if you're trying to get into pen testing. 29:30.400 --> 29:41.360 Another great way, too, is just to put yourself as an independent researcher working on bug bounty platforms, or, you know, doing your own research and publishing it out there on GitHub, and things like that. 29:41.360 --> 29:51.580 And then another, you know, less IT, more engineering roles, you can do software engineering, or even secure software engineering, right? 29:51.580 --> 29:53.600 Where you're actually building programs. 29:53.600 --> 29:59.860 Those are going to be some great positions that are going to help pivot you into pen test. 30:00.620 --> 30:06.100 So, again, these are all great positions to have before getting into pen testing. 30:06.100 --> 30:13.300 And these are going to be positions that if you can't get into pen testing, start looking at roles like this, and growing from there. 30:14.220 --> 30:17.000 And then once we actually look at pen testing, right? 30:17.020 --> 30:19.900 So we looked at all the roles that can help us lead into pen testing. 30:19.900 --> 30:21.420 So what are some pen testing roles, right? 30:21.420 --> 30:24.640 Because you don't have to go on LinkedIn or Indeed and just type in penetration tester. 30:24.640 --> 30:33.600 These are some other roles that you can look at that actually do a lot of the offensive security pen testing kind of qualities, right? 30:33.600 --> 30:37.120 So of course, there's the penetration tester, there's red teaming, right? 30:37.120 --> 30:39.400 You can be a red teamer, red team engineer. 30:40.340 --> 30:46.520 Those are going to be the individuals that are off going and doing offensive security operations. 30:46.920 --> 30:50.060 And then there's offensive security engineers, right? 30:50.060 --> 30:55.340 And a lot of time I see that position title mingle with the word penetration tester. 30:55.640 --> 31:06.320 Application security engineers, where you're actually helping secure code, and you're helping application engineers write better code and build better programs and better systems. 31:07.180 --> 31:12.360 Of course, there's ethical hacker, I still see that position pop up every so often. 31:12.360 --> 31:18.720 It's really just, you know, it's a penetration tester with just a different word, right? 31:18.720 --> 31:20.620 But you may see that. 31:20.820 --> 31:22.620 Exploit developer, right? 31:22.720 --> 31:29.240 That's going to be the individual who's actually going to be hacking applications and developing exploit code. 31:29.320 --> 31:32.000 And then you can be a consultant, right? 31:32.420 --> 31:41.940 You know, a lot of times smaller firms are just going to be a consultant, and you'll do penetration testing, you'll do vulnerability stuff, and anything in between, right? 31:41.940 --> 31:48.600 And then purple teamer, a purple teamer is someone who is going to be between the blue team and the red team, right? 31:48.740 --> 31:57.040 And so the key quality there is that they have to understand red teaming and pen testing, and typically have a background in pen testing. 31:58.280 --> 32:06.700 And so the great thing there is that, you know, this is a the purple teamer is really a good position to have after you've done pen testing for a while. 32:06.700 --> 32:10.780 However, say, you know, you might be looking to spice up your life a little bit. 32:10.780 --> 32:16.160 Purple teaming is a good position, or a good job title, rather, to look at. 32:16.320 --> 32:25.720 So now that we know how to network, we know the technical skills that we need to build up. 32:26.100 --> 32:34.540 And we also understand some of the job titles that we can get before we get into pen testing, and then understand some of the job titles that may have pen testing in them. 32:34.540 --> 32:41.520 Now we need to understand the educational requirements, and then also the certification requirements. 32:41.600 --> 32:45.120 And some of this may come off a little biased. 32:45.120 --> 32:53.860 I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and currently pursuing a PhD in cyber operations at the Dakota State University. 32:54.020 --> 32:58.300 So, you know, I may present a little bit of bias here. 32:58.300 --> 33:07.220 However, I do think that going to school for some is very good, because it's something that requires you to push yourself, right? 33:07.220 --> 33:11.360 You have assignments that have deadlines, things like that, right? 33:11.360 --> 33:23.700 So if education is something that you look at, and it's something that interests you, these are some of the degrees that you can get that are going to help put you in the right place to become a penetration tester. 33:23.700 --> 33:28.600 So computer science, cybersecurity, those are pretty obvious, right? 33:28.600 --> 33:39.780 Information systems, computer engineering, those are going to be some really good degrees to get if you want to go become a penetration tester, or even do any of those positions that we mentioned to help get you into pen testing. 33:39.780 --> 33:50.920 An MBA, especially if you want to eventually become management within, you know, cyber operations and offensive security, an MBA is a pretty good degree to have. 33:50.920 --> 33:55.500 However, I wouldn't recommend to get that, you know, straight out of the gate, right? 33:55.780 --> 33:57.620 Coding boot camps are really good. 33:57.720 --> 33:58.420 Those are really good. 33:58.420 --> 34:02.680 Those are going to help secure you a job as a software engineer, if that's something that you're interested in. 34:02.680 --> 34:13.260 And then even criminal justice, you know, that's a I see a lot of individuals that have criminal justice degrees, just because you understand the how rules work with culture. 34:13.260 --> 34:24.520 And that's a big part of being a pen testers, you have to understand the culture of your clients and your businesses, and how that culture plays with security and how security plays with that culture. 34:25.040 --> 34:32.160 So, in a lot of pen testing jobs that you see, you're going to see where it says, you know, a bachelor degree is typically required. 34:32.540 --> 34:34.800 And a master's degree is typically desired. 34:34.920 --> 34:49.500 So, and what I mean by that is a lot of teams that I've worked on over the past few years, you know, a lot of the individuals, unless you have, you know, 20 years or 15 years of experience, you know, they would love for you to have a master's degree. 34:49.500 --> 34:56.360 And in the terms of creating a roadmap, having a master's degree is going to make you that more competitive, right? 34:57.220 --> 35:03.080 And it's, it's just one of those things that's going to help kind of make you a unicorn a little bit. 35:03.460 --> 35:09.600 You know, and I'm not saying go off and get multiple master's degrees, but at least having one is going to help you, right? 35:09.600 --> 35:15.920 And then down here, I also state like, hey, if you want to stay competitive, stay in school, right? 35:16.420 --> 35:24.820 Because it's just a great way to keep yourself in that learning mindset, because you constantly have to have assignments due, and things like that. 35:24.820 --> 35:28.880 So, so now let's talk about some certifications, right? 35:28.880 --> 35:32.180 So let me move my little window here. 35:32.180 --> 35:41.220 And so these are some of the certifications that we see to help get you into pen testing and also maintain yourself as a penetration tester. 35:41.220 --> 35:44.860 There are some certifications that are not on here. 35:44.860 --> 35:54.080 However, I wanted to put some of the more entry level ones as well as the higher level ones that will help get you into pen testing. 35:54.100 --> 35:58.400 So I'm not going to read this list right here, because we're about to actually break them down. 35:58.400 --> 36:04.900 But we're going to look at like, the cost of the exam vouchers, and how much time you're going to be spending on it. 36:04.900 --> 36:22.140 And also, for those of you on the outside looking in who may or may not be in cybersecurity at all, or even have a technical background, I want to mention how hard it might be to pass that exam without any kind of industry experience. 36:25.240 --> 36:29.380 So the CompTIA Security Plus, right? 36:29.380 --> 36:35.080 This is a great certification that's going to help build your knowledge base of just the security basics. 36:35.080 --> 36:43.520 For those of you that go through like bachelor degrees, too, there's a lot of material in most cybersecurity bachelor degrees that follow the Security Plus. 36:43.520 --> 36:50.580 So for those of you that are in school right now for cybersecurity, you know, do two things at once. 36:50.580 --> 36:54.920 And while you're going to school, also take the Security Plus, right? 36:55.000 --> 36:56.160 So how much is it? 36:56.160 --> 37:01.580 It's 350 bucks for a voucher, and you're probably going to spend about $200 on extra materials. 37:01.580 --> 37:07.740 So that can be extra books, videos, test books, things like that, right? 37:07.740 --> 37:11.320 Takes usually about one to three months of consistent studying. 37:11.320 --> 37:16.500 So I say consistent for this, that's probably about two hours a day. 37:17.260 --> 37:26.640 And then the exam is 90 minutes long, you have anywhere from, I don't know the minimum amount of questions, but as per the site, it says 90. 37:26.660 --> 37:33.180 So that's going to be the maximum amount of questions that you have, and you have to score 750 on a grade of 100 to 90. 37:33.180 --> 37:36.140 So passing without industry experience. 37:36.140 --> 37:40.620 So this is for those of you looking in from the outside. 37:41.100 --> 37:45.360 It's not too challenging if you do proper studying, right? 37:45.360 --> 37:55.860 And that means you're going to be looking in your books and testing yourself every day for at least two hours for one to three months. 37:56.460 --> 37:59.480 So what's the next certification? 37:59.940 --> 38:03.800 The next one is the Certified Ethical Hacker, also known as the CEH. 38:03.800 --> 38:15.920 This is an exam, it's not hands-on, but it is, as it says here, 125 questions, and those 125 questions test your knowledge of hacking methodologies. 38:15.920 --> 38:24.640 So I've taken this and the Security+, and this exam is a lot like the Security+, only it applies hacker methodologies to it. 38:24.640 --> 38:28.100 So the cost, as you can see, the voucher is pretty expensive. 38:28.700 --> 38:31.160 $1,200 is not cheap. 38:32.180 --> 38:41.180 However, this is a good certification to have, because if you want to do compliance-based pen testing, you have to have at least CEH. 38:42.080 --> 38:44.960 And there's other certs that you can have too, and we'll mention that. 38:44.960 --> 38:48.700 But CEH is the bare minimum if you want to do compliance-based pen testing. 38:48.760 --> 38:51.640 So how long does it take with, you know, consistent studying? 38:51.640 --> 38:57.480 Again, that's two hours or so a day, one to three months would be expected. 38:57.500 --> 39:03.260 The exam is four hours long, and you have to have a 60 to 85% to pass. 39:03.260 --> 39:06.540 And that depends on the exam that you give you. 39:06.540 --> 39:09.980 So I'm not sure quite how that works. 39:09.980 --> 39:16.620 When I took this, I believe it just had a straight bar of what you had to have to pass, and I believe that was 70. 39:16.620 --> 39:18.420 However, they've changed it since then. 39:20.800 --> 39:23.680 It's a little challenging because it's a lot of questions. 39:23.680 --> 39:34.600 However, you can do it if you do proper studying of, you know, two to three hours a day, and then less challenging if you pay $2,000 for the EC Council PEP course, which is a course that they provide for you. 39:34.600 --> 39:41.440 I think it's like a week, and they teach you all the topics that are in the exam. 39:42.480 --> 39:46.740 So this is one of my favorite certifications out of the whole bunch. 39:46.940 --> 39:50.860 This is the eLearn Security Junior Penetration Tester, right? 39:50.880 --> 40:00.620 I'm not even going to mention the voucher, because you spend $500 and you get four exam vouchers, plus lab time and all the materials you need to take the exam. 40:00.620 --> 40:03.400 This is a great certification, especially now. 40:03.400 --> 40:12.720 It's getting a lot of tread on becoming a really well-known cert in the industry, as opposed to three years ago when I took it, nobody knew what it was. 40:13.460 --> 40:15.900 So it's a really good exam to take now. 40:16.480 --> 40:25.180 So, you know, you need about one to three months of consistent studying, and that's going to be reading the material, being in the labs and everything that they provide for you. 40:25.180 --> 40:30.220 And then the great thing about the exam is that it's 100% hands-on. 40:30.300 --> 40:36.120 It emulates a black box pen test, and you have to have a 70% to pass it. 40:36.120 --> 40:38.440 They give you a bunch of questions. 40:38.440 --> 40:46.560 I believe it's like 20 questions, if I remember correctly, that you have to answer by actually performing certain steps within the environment. 40:46.560 --> 41:02.440 Passing without industry experience, it's less challenging, even from the outside looking in, because eLearn Security really helps, you know, hold your hand through the entire process of teaching you everything that you need to know to pass that exam with the materials they provide. 41:03.460 --> 41:12.740 Another great exam that recently has come to light in the past year or two is the Ethical Hacker Practical Exam. 41:12.740 --> 41:13.780 So let's look at the cost. 41:13.780 --> 41:20.740 It's $550 for a voucher, and I would say you're probably going to spend $300 on materials and extra labs and stuff. 41:21.640 --> 41:25.600 Again, one to three months of consistent studying of the two hours a day. 41:25.780 --> 41:33.400 And the great thing about this is it's like the Junior Penetration Testing Cert from eLearn Security. 41:33.400 --> 41:37.420 This cert is a hands-on certification as well. 41:37.420 --> 41:44.400 They give you 20 questions that you have to answer based on what you can do in the environment that they provide you. 41:44.400 --> 41:47.280 However, it's not like a black box pen test. 41:47.700 --> 41:55.900 They provide you a scope of machines that you have to attack and provide answers to the questions that they ask you. 41:56.360 --> 42:03.680 Now, from the outside looking in, this is a little bit more challenging because they don't really have a lot of materials out there. 42:03.680 --> 42:07.620 So you have to kind of go and look on your own. 42:07.620 --> 42:14.200 So it makes it challenging in that aspect because you have to go find the materials. 42:15.660 --> 42:22.840 So now we went from two hands-on exams to a not hands-on exam. 42:22.840 --> 42:28.000 However, I would like to argue that this is actually a fairly challenging exam. 42:28.040 --> 42:35.160 The CompTIA Pen Test Plus is the pen testing cert provided by CompTIA. 42:35.160 --> 42:44.380 It's $359 for a voucher plus $300 for materials, videos, and some lab stuff that you're going to want to use to help practice your technical skills. 42:47.580 --> 42:51.880 The exam itself is 165 minutes. 42:51.920 --> 42:53.280 It's a maximum of 85 questions. 42:53.280 --> 42:57.580 And just like the Security Plus, $750 on a scale of 100 to 900. 42:57.700 --> 43:01.180 You are going to have to do about three to four months of consistent studying. 43:01.180 --> 43:03.540 I would argue two to three hours a day. 43:05.200 --> 43:08.040 Passing without industry experience is actually challenging. 43:08.600 --> 43:13.420 And I took this exam last year, even after being in pen testing for a while. 43:13.420 --> 43:17.060 And I took this exam and it was actually quite challenging. 43:17.420 --> 43:27.500 They provide a lot of really good scenario-based questions where you really have to go through a process of elimination to answer them based off of a scenario. 43:27.500 --> 43:31.960 So again, this is a really good certification to get. 43:32.300 --> 43:34.220 And it's fairly cheap, as you can see. 43:34.400 --> 43:39.720 It's $350 for the voucher, give or take, and $300 for the material. 43:39.720 --> 43:48.480 So if you wanted to quarter that out over the four months, you're going to be spending a little over $150 per month for the cert. 43:49.600 --> 43:55.160 The next one is the GX Certified Penetration Tester, also commonly known as the G-Pen. 43:55.160 --> 43:57.160 That's provided by SANS. 43:57.160 --> 44:00.140 The cost, as you can see, the voucher is a whopping $2,000. 44:00.140 --> 44:02.180 That's a pretty expensive voucher. 44:02.300 --> 44:07.720 Plus, the training provided by SANS is one- to two-week training. 44:07.720 --> 44:13.440 Plus, they have a NetWars exercise where you and a bunch of other individuals go and do a hacking challenge. 44:14.140 --> 44:16.020 However, so that's pretty expensive. 44:16.020 --> 44:19.600 As you can see, you could easily rack up $9,000 to $10,000 to do it. 44:19.600 --> 44:21.540 However, this is a really good certification. 44:21.600 --> 44:27.880 It's another one of those certifications that I believe is required for compliance-based pen testing. 44:27.880 --> 44:31.260 So four months of consistent studying. 44:31.900 --> 44:35.300 Again, that's based off of the two hours plus a day. 44:35.300 --> 44:37.840 The exam itself is three hours. 44:37.960 --> 44:44.020 You have 82 to 115 questions, and you have to get a 75 to at least pass. 44:44.020 --> 44:50.760 So passing without industry experience, fairly challenging, without any kind of industry experience. 44:50.760 --> 44:55.240 And then it says less challenging with studying and the Efficient Index. 44:55.240 --> 45:05.200 So the Efficient Index, what that means is that you're actually able to take your study materials and bring them in with you and use those as references to pass the exam. 45:05.200 --> 45:17.520 So when you're going through in the test center, because this isn't a hands-on certification, it's you go and take it in a test center, and you can take your books with you. 45:17.520 --> 45:28.120 So create an index of crucial points that you may or may not be well-diversed in so that you can reference those during the exam. 45:29.480 --> 45:35.740 So now we have the Certified Professional Penetration Tester, also known as the ECPPT. 45:36.080 --> 45:39.080 This is an eLearn security certification. 45:39.080 --> 45:41.480 The cost for it is $1,600. 45:41.480 --> 45:44.160 That's with materials, labs, and an exam voucher. 45:44.160 --> 45:46.740 Again, they provide everything for you. 45:47.000 --> 45:51.540 And then I would say two to four months of consistent studying. 45:51.540 --> 45:56.480 I would argue that two hours may or may not be enough, just depending. 45:56.480 --> 46:00.280 And then the exam itself is seven days long. 46:00.460 --> 46:05.280 It's an actual, real-life pen test where they don't give you any questions or anything. 46:05.280 --> 46:09.420 They just give you a rule of engagement that tells you what you need to do. 46:09.580 --> 46:15.820 And then you go and do that over seven days, and then you have seven days after that to write a report and submit it to eLearn Security. 46:15.820 --> 46:29.380 So this is a really good certification for those of you that are looking to get some real-life knowledge in how penetration testing works, because this really, really hits the nail on the head of how they do it. 46:29.380 --> 46:30.600 It's fantastic. 46:31.060 --> 46:33.780 Passing without industry experience, it's going to be challenging. 46:33.780 --> 46:44.060 However, because of how eLearn Security operates and how their certifications are, they provide you everything you need to pass the exam. 46:44.060 --> 46:54.840 So if this is a certification that you decide to get, the material that they give you is really going to help you strive and achieve and pass the exam. 46:55.240 --> 47:00.460 And then we have the big cert that I'm sure a lot of you have heard of. 47:00.460 --> 47:05.440 It's the Offensive Security Certified Professional, also commonly known as the OSCP. 47:05.940 --> 47:10.220 The cost for this certification is $150 for a voucher. 47:10.220 --> 47:18.040 However, on the initial purchase, when you're deciding to get the labs and the material and all that stuff, you're going to spend about $1350. 47:18.040 --> 47:21.140 You're going to get the exam voucher, the materials, and the labs. 47:21.140 --> 47:22.960 And you only get the labs for 90 days. 47:26.420 --> 47:32.220 I hear a lot of individuals like to get an extension on the lab so that they have the labs for six months. 47:32.220 --> 47:35.620 If you want to do that, you're looking at another $800. 47:36.420 --> 47:39.660 However, I would argue that you might not need that. 47:39.660 --> 47:47.280 There's other resources such as TryHackMe, Vulnhub, and HackTheBox that you can use. 47:47.280 --> 47:50.560 However, I'm not saying you don't have to do the lab extension. 47:50.560 --> 47:58.340 If you feel that that would give you a good return on your investment while going through the journey of getting OSCP, then absolutely do it. 47:58.340 --> 48:02.540 However, I would baseline that this certification is probably going to cost you about $350. 48:02.640 --> 48:04.160 I'm sorry, not $350. 48:04.260 --> 48:07.280 It's going to cost you about $1,500 altogether. 48:07.280 --> 48:10.340 So how long does it take to get this? 48:10.740 --> 48:19.820 On average, and again, this is the rule, not the exception that I've seen over the past few years, six months to a year. 48:19.820 --> 48:25.360 And I see individuals that get it done in less time and other individuals that it takes more time. 48:25.360 --> 48:27.960 However, the average is about six months to a year. 48:28.960 --> 48:31.140 And that's with consistent studying. 48:31.140 --> 48:44.960 And you can read a lot of stories of individuals out there that studied for three, four, five, six hours a day, or completely lost their weekends because they spent their whole weekend just studying for this exam. 48:45.920 --> 48:50.800 And you can use additional resources such as TryHackMe, HackTheBox, and Vulnhub, as I mentioned. 48:50.800 --> 49:01.620 So the exam is a 24-hour hands-on exercise where you get five machines that vary in difficulty and points, and you have to hack those. 49:01.780 --> 49:09.240 And then you have 24 hours to write a report after you've hacked however many machines you get into. 49:09.240 --> 49:13.980 So passing without industry experience, this is a very, very challenging exam. 49:14.400 --> 49:20.640 It's a very sought-after exam for good reason because it's so challenging. 49:20.640 --> 49:27.560 So when you're going after this exam, know that it is very challenging and you're going to hit a lot of roadblocks. 49:27.560 --> 49:30.500 You're going to hit a lot of speed bumps that you're going to have to work around. 49:30.500 --> 49:37.800 So those are the certifications that I recommend you look at in that order. 49:37.960 --> 49:40.020 Don't go straight after the OSCP. 49:40.180 --> 49:44.840 Look at some other certifications that are going to help build your career into pen testing. 49:44.940 --> 49:52.080 However, now that we've talked about degrees and certifications, let's talk about some of the skill sets that we need to develop as well. 49:52.080 --> 49:53.360 So programming. 49:53.360 --> 49:55.900 Do you have to be a programmer to be a penetration tester? 49:55.920 --> 49:57.560 Absolutely not. 49:57.680 --> 49:59.540 I am not a programmer. 49:59.540 --> 50:06.520 I can do some scripting and things like that, but I'm not a software engineer or a programmer by any means. 50:06.520 --> 50:14.620 However, it is good to know how to script and automate tools and things that you're using during a pen test. 50:14.620 --> 50:17.880 And one of the best languages to do that with is Python. 50:17.880 --> 50:24.740 If you're trying to think about a language to use for pen testing, Python is going to be the best one. 50:24.740 --> 50:35.520 Because it's used to write exploits, it's used to do automation, to automate tasks, things like that, and to also write quick scripts to help you, again, automate tasks. 50:35.520 --> 50:36.700 Bash, same thing. 50:36.700 --> 50:38.080 Scripting and automation. 50:38.080 --> 50:46.560 And then I put C and Java because you'll notice a lot of exploits out there are written in C and Java. 50:46.560 --> 50:52.380 And especially with C, you'll learn how to compile and decompile exploits. 50:52.380 --> 50:56.300 So it's good to just know the basic understanding of C and Java. 50:57.940 --> 51:03.840 Other things that are good to be knowledgeable in are operating systems, Windows and Linux. 51:03.840 --> 51:12.140 We need to at least understand the basics of how the file systems work and the basics of some of the commands that we're going to commonly be using, as well as networking. 51:12.140 --> 51:22.280 You need to be able to fire off ports and protocols without even having to reference anything, as well as understanding just how TCP and IP stuff works. 51:22.280 --> 51:23.900 Everything at the network layer. 51:25.140 --> 51:31.500 And then software, just understanding the basics, again, how you compile and decompile software. 51:31.780 --> 51:33.400 And then right now, cloud. 51:33.400 --> 51:37.040 Cloud is a great thing to understand just even the basics. 51:37.040 --> 51:39.960 And if you have security knowledge in it, it's going to make you competitive. 51:39.960 --> 51:49.460 And I say that because cloud pentesting, especially in pentesting, there's not a traditional cloud framework that's been published yet. 51:49.460 --> 51:56.440 There's a lot of ideas, and there's a lot of great resources out there on how to execute a cloud pentest. 51:56.440 --> 51:59.680 However, there's not a traditional framework set in stone yet. 51:59.680 --> 52:11.320 So if you decide to strive into cloud and focus on that area, it's going to make you a little bit competitive in that aspect. 52:12.300 --> 52:24.200 And then now we need to talk about how do we maintain this energy pushing us forward into pentesting, and then also once we're even in pentesting. 52:24.200 --> 52:28.540 So a big thing, again, we talked about networking. 52:28.540 --> 52:33.800 Well, what are some other ways how we can network in a less untraditional way? 52:35.520 --> 52:38.480 Join online hacking forums, Reddit, Discord, Slack. 52:38.480 --> 52:44.000 Those are really great resources to use that are going to help you meet other people. 52:44.000 --> 52:49.640 Create a blog and publish any of your writings, whether they be technical or non-technical. 52:49.720 --> 52:57.600 As I mentioned before, we need to continuously evaluate our technical skills using those platforms such as Hack the Box, VulnHub, things like that. 52:57.600 --> 53:04.660 You can use those and then create write-ups based off of things that you hacked on those and publish them on a blog. 53:04.660 --> 53:22.160 And then when you're applying somewhere, you can put your blog in your resume and have that as a reference point for the employer to look at and say, oh, this individual actually has their technical chops up to speed and they've created some really good content that shows that they're technically competent. 53:22.160 --> 53:31.340 And that's what's going to help give you a competitive edge is by being able to publish these technical writings. 53:31.480 --> 53:36.480 And even non-technical, you can talk about ideas and talk about frameworks and things like that. 53:36.800 --> 53:41.200 It's all about just putting your name out there and not being afraid. 53:41.740 --> 53:45.660 And then subscribe to any of the hacking platforms. 53:45.660 --> 53:46.980 I put some of the costs on here. 53:46.980 --> 53:48.300 VulnHub is free. 53:48.780 --> 53:53.360 However, they did just create a partnership with Offensive Security. 53:53.360 --> 53:57.660 So it's going to be awesome to see how those two companies move forward with the VulnHub platform. 53:57.980 --> 54:01.000 And then you have tryhackme.com, Hack the Box. 54:01.000 --> 54:02.260 Those are the subscriptions. 54:02.260 --> 54:04.000 And then you got Pintest Academy. 54:04.000 --> 54:16.300 Those are going to be some really great resources that will allow you to continuously build your technical skill set as well as even in things like VulnHub. 54:16.300 --> 54:21.280 But on Hack the Box, there's a big community on Hack the Box where individuals talk to each other and everything. 54:21.280 --> 54:26.320 So again, there's another part where you can actually network. 54:26.320 --> 54:29.520 And then I say here, find your niche, right? 54:29.520 --> 54:31.640 Find what you really, really like. 54:31.640 --> 54:34.080 I really like cloud and academia. 54:34.220 --> 54:39.700 I really like cloud because it's a continuously expanding technology and it's the hot topic right now. 54:39.700 --> 54:44.260 And there's a lot of areas for research, as well as I like academia a lot. 54:44.260 --> 54:45.480 I really like giving back. 54:45.480 --> 54:46.860 And I really like research. 54:46.860 --> 54:55.960 So when you work in academia, you get to continuously evaluate and renew your skill set and just your framework in your head. 54:56.320 --> 55:01.040 But there's some other areas, rather it be system, network, security, development. 55:01.400 --> 55:13.920 These are just a few things, but there's so many areas of offensive security and Pintesting that you can really, really dive into and go down the rabbit hole, so to speak. 55:14.660 --> 55:18.480 And the other big thing is to find a mentor, no matter where you're at. 55:18.480 --> 55:29.800 Even once you become a penetration tester, make sure that you have mentors, because those are going to be the individuals that are going to hold you accountable to keeping your goals, right? 55:30.040 --> 55:32.280 And find other student Pintesters. 55:32.280 --> 55:36.460 This is a good thing, especially if you're wanting to be a Pintester. 55:36.460 --> 55:42.520 Rather you're a student at school, or you're just a self-taught Pintester. 55:42.660 --> 55:51.340 Find other ones that are just like you and see how they are in their journey, and you can help each other out to get into Pintesting. 55:51.360 --> 55:53.320 And the other thing is to find a mentee. 55:53.320 --> 55:55.100 Find someone that you can help, right? 55:55.100 --> 55:58.900 That you can help push their career where they want to go. 55:58.900 --> 56:02.000 And then also there's the bug bounty platforms. 56:02.000 --> 56:09.440 Those are great to have, because those are going to give you a real world sense of how you can hack a live web application. 56:09.900 --> 56:21.520 And also help you understand the business side of things, because you're going to be producing vulnerability reports or vulnerability and Pintesting reports that go to those organizations. 56:22.500 --> 56:27.720 And then to finish off, I wanted to talk about the challenges that we're seeing during the pandemic era, right? 56:27.720 --> 56:33.220 Because COVID is just, it's really thrown the whole world for a loop, right? 56:33.220 --> 56:38.300 So what's something big is remote work has become very, very popular, right? 56:38.640 --> 56:41.680 So it's making things competitive. 56:41.680 --> 56:44.800 However, it's also opening things up for a lot of us, right? 56:44.800 --> 56:47.680 So make your online presence visible, right? 56:47.680 --> 56:50.980 Through social media, through Twitter, through LinkedIn, things like that. 56:50.980 --> 56:54.720 You can really, really use this time to shine on social media. 56:56.780 --> 56:58.720 Another big thing is hiring freezes. 56:58.720 --> 57:04.620 We're seeing a lot of companies just freeze all the hirings altogether. 57:04.620 --> 57:05.560 So what does that mean? 57:05.560 --> 57:10.420 That means you might not be able to go get that job with that certain company that you wanted to get to, right? 57:11.340 --> 57:17.940 And we've seen this a lot right now, even with like interns, we've seen a lot of internships, you know, kind of go away because hiring freezes and all that stuff. 57:17.940 --> 57:20.220 So what can you do to work around this? 57:20.220 --> 57:23.080 Well, go look at those bug bounty programs. 57:23.520 --> 57:28.460 You know, see if you can build your skill set there and make a little money while you're doing it, right? 57:29.100 --> 57:33.200 And if you want to try another avenue, use your network, right? 57:33.700 --> 57:43.140 Go on LinkedIn, go on Twitter, Facebook, anything where you may know someone who can help push your career where you want to go. 57:43.140 --> 57:55.240 And the other big thing is, too, is the great and I want to add, it's a great thing is that all these conventions that we're having right now, most of them are free, and they're all online, right? 57:55.500 --> 58:02.900 And so, you know, use that to your advantage and use that as a platform where you can get your name out there. 58:03.420 --> 58:09.560 And again, it all falls in line with leaving fear in the rearview mirror and being humble. 58:09.820 --> 58:11.700 So, you know, just don't be scared. 58:11.700 --> 58:21.260 Don't be scared to talk to anyone and make sure that, you know, you're attentive and you listen, and that, you know, you're eager to learn what they have to tell you. 58:21.780 --> 58:25.860 And then the other big thing is layoffs and furloughs. 58:25.860 --> 58:30.080 We've seen a lot of individuals lose their jobs or have their jobs put on pause. 58:30.320 --> 58:45.420 So, and this goes more towards you, is that if you've been laid off or you've been furloughed, use this time to reassess your skill set, you know, maybe set a milestone that you didn't think you're going to have to set for a while. 58:45.420 --> 58:48.780 But COVID has, you know, COVID has no bias. 58:48.900 --> 58:54.380 So, if it has affected you, you know, use that time to better yourself, right? 58:54.400 --> 59:04.020 And it says go through steps one and two, you know, make your presence on, you know, your online presence on social media a lot bigger. 59:04.060 --> 59:14.220 And then also, you know, use your network, expand in your network, attend conferences, and look at other avenues of ways of how you can develop your skill set. 59:14.220 --> 59:28.180 And another big thing too, and I didn't put it on here is, you know, if you have a certification that you wanted to get for a while, I've seen a lot of individuals getting certifications currently, use this time to spend a little money, get a certification or two, 59:28.180 --> 59:35.100 and then, you know, hit the workforce, you know, heavy when things start to go back to normal. 59:36.860 --> 59:52.120 And then to close this out, you know, in your journey, you know, you're going to start out in your journey and you're going to have a lot of motivation, you're going to have a lot of energy, and you may have some self-doubt, but your focus and your determination is drowning that out. 59:52.120 --> 59:55.740 And then you're going to have your speed bumps and you're going to fail a little bit. 59:55.780 --> 59:58.040 But don't let that motivation stop. 59:58.220 --> 01:00:04.440 Don't let fear and doubt creep in just because you hit a speed bump and you fail a little bit here and there, right? 01:00:04.440 --> 01:00:07.560 Because you only completely fail when you quit. 01:00:08.300 --> 01:00:11.980 So instead, take that time to learn what you did wrong. 01:00:12.060 --> 01:00:17.420 Take that time to learn how you can do better the next time and how you can grow. 01:00:17.420 --> 01:00:19.580 Because security is a journey. 01:00:19.620 --> 01:00:21.440 It's not a destination. 01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:25.740 So that's all I have for you guys. 01:00:25.740 --> 01:00:28.240 I appreciate everyone for coming to my talk. 01:00:28.240 --> 01:00:30.300 Again, my name is John Helmes. 01:00:30.300 --> 01:00:39.120 And if anyone has any questions for me, please feel free to reach out to me at my blog, or I have a pretty heavy presence on LinkedIn. 01:00:39.640 --> 01:00:43.980 So yeah, so again, thanks, everybody, and I'll see you around.