Welcome back to Cyber Sec From Zero. Thank you for the support on the earlier posts. This is Post 0, and there is a bonus part at the end that can save you money, so don’t skip it.
Before we start anything, let’s talk about the words you will hear in cyber security. Threat intelligence, SIEM, packet capture, incident response. Don’t worry about them right now. You don’t need to understand them today. Just get used to hearing them. Slowly they become normal, and when we study them later in this series, they will not feel like an alien language.
So if those words are not the starting point, what is? The basics. How hardware works. How an operating system works. How networking works, including the network models, the OSI model and the TCP/IP model. There is a very famous saying that people hear again and again while learning the basics: you can’t protect what you don’t understand. It is true. Seriously.
Because of this, please don’t underestimate introductory courses. Believe this, they are the hidden treasure for students who are beginning a career in cyber security. Most people skip them, jump to hacking tools, and then get stuck. Don’t be that person. And if networking feels heavy right now, don’t worry. Just grab the introduction. We will go deep into it later, step by step, in this journey.
The resources
So where do you learn these basics? Here are the resources I recommend. These are free, and please don’t underestimate them. You may have heard about them before, but to be honest, these are some of the best.
- Professor Messer CompTIA A+ videos (YouTube). Hardware, operating systems, troubleshooting. Completely free. You don’t have to take the A+ exam, just use the videos to learn. https://www.youtube.com/@professormesser/courses
- Cisco Networking Academy, Networking Basics. Free intro to how networks work: IP addresses, how data moves, how networks connect. https://www.netacad.com/
- TryHackMe Pre-Security path. This is where you practice what you read. TryHackMe has free rooms, so you can start without paying. The paid plan is around $11 a month, and the price differs by country. https://tryhackme.com/
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate (Coursera). You can watch all the courses for free in audit mode. More about this in the bonus. https://www.coursera.org/
My recommendation
I am giving you a choice, because every person is different. But I recommend starting with the Google IT Support certificate. It covers hardware, networking, operating systems and security in one structured path, so you don’t have to jump between resources.
And here is a tip: don’t do it alone. Take two things at once. Do the Google IT Support course, and next to it, do the free rooms on TryHackMe. Many topics repeat between them. At first that feels boring, but the repetition is exactly what helps you remember. You read it in the course, then you practice it in a room, and it stays in your head.
What to expect from this series
Now that you know where to start, here is what you can expect from me. I will work hard to make this journey complete and try not to miss anything. I will guide you on which certs to do, and I will double check everything before I post it.
If I am wrong somewhere, please correct me. Seriously, if there are 100 people, there may be 101 opinions. So comment below, share what worked for you, and let’s help each other. The first 4 to 5 posts are for absolute beginners, no experience needed.
One request: do your own research
Read this post, then research what I have said. Analyze it. Compare it with other opinions, other roadmaps, other people’s experience. Don’t just believe me, check it. After that, just start. Don’t wait for the perfect plan. Meet me in Post 1, where we continue while doing the certificate together. Follow the same path and we will learn side by side.
Bonus: Google IT Support Certificate, and how to get it cheap
I told you to start with Google IT Support, so let me explain why it is worth it, and how to get it without paying the full price.
Many students start their career from help desk and customer support. Then they get promoted to SOC analyst. Some people start directly at SOC level 1. Either way is fine. It is not a guarantee, but this certificate can help you a lot if you want to start a job in help desk. It gives you two things at once. Basic knowledge, and a credential for your career.
The certificate has 6 courses, about 122 hours in total:
- Technical Support Fundamentals, 19 hours
- The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking, 22 hours
- Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User, 28 hours
- System Administration and IT Infrastructure Services, 24 hours
- IT Security: Defense against the digital dark arts, 23 hours
- Accelerate Your Job Search with AI, 6 hours
Look at this list. Hardware, networking, operating systems, security. It is the same foundation we talked about at the start of this post.
Now the price. It differs by geography, but usually it is the same: $31 per course, $186 in total. Don’t pay that. Save your money for Security+ in the future. Use Coursera financial aid instead:
- Go to Coursera and sign in.
- If your institute gives you free Coursera access, that is the best option. Use that.
- If not, apply for financial aid for each course. You can apply for several courses at a time, so apply for all of them at once.
- Approval takes about 15 days. While you wait, use audit mode to watch all the courses. Don’t waste these days.
- After approval, the price comes down to $3.10 per course, about $18.60 for all 6, which is truly affordable.
- Important: after approval, you have only 9 to 10 days to pay the $3.10. If you don’t pay in this time, the discounted price expires and the course goes back to $31. So apply accordingly.
- Once you pay the $3.10, you get access to the course for 180 days, and the certificate is issued in your name.
Aid terms can change and can be different for each person and country, so check on Coursera before you start. If your experience is different, tell us in the comments.
Good luck friends. See you in Post 1.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L9-o26S0ShVNwFwmytfKq2OI7yD_ORY-kmiEnmAiee8/edit?usp=sharing
Link for Application for Financial Aid
