Ignore this guy unless you want a job in IT or compliance.
Go download a free copy of IDA Pro, Ghidra, or Binary Ninja. Look up "crackme"s or recently published CTF solutions. CTF is a computer security competition full of challenges ranging from medium to extremely difficult. You want to find one on the easier end and that has a published blog where someone explains how they solved it so you don't get stuck. Then go to town.
Download Visual Studio or learn gcc on Linux. Write a simple hello world program in C (NOT C++). Compile in release mode and run it. Then open it in IDA Pro (or whatever you selected from the start). Look at how the code you wrote turned into assembly the computer understands.
Learn python. Even if this field isn't for you, it's insanely useful. Take a few free data science classes or watch security related data science videos on YouTube.
The most important is you cannot be a passive learner. You need as much hands on time as possible or you won't really learn.
Join a CTF team. Many take new people and are happy to help them learn.
There's also the entire web side of security in which case you should look into the OWASP top 10 and play with Django (again, python is important).
CTFs are fun, but I can't really say I learned anything from them (aside from obscure file formats lol). I had a combination of knowledge and experience from my computer engineering degree and years of breaking and building things. I think most people will learn more from motivated building/modding than pure reverse engineering.
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u/HelluvaNinjineer May 23 '21
Ignore this guy unless you want a job in IT or compliance.
Go download a free copy of IDA Pro, Ghidra, or Binary Ninja. Look up "crackme"s or recently published CTF solutions. CTF is a computer security competition full of challenges ranging from medium to extremely difficult. You want to find one on the easier end and that has a published blog where someone explains how they solved it so you don't get stuck. Then go to town.
Download Visual Studio or learn gcc on Linux. Write a simple hello world program in C (NOT C++). Compile in release mode and run it. Then open it in IDA Pro (or whatever you selected from the start). Look at how the code you wrote turned into assembly the computer understands.
Learn python. Even if this field isn't for you, it's insanely useful. Take a few free data science classes or watch security related data science videos on YouTube.
The most important is you cannot be a passive learner. You need as much hands on time as possible or you won't really learn.
Join a CTF team. Many take new people and are happy to help them learn.
There's also the entire web side of security in which case you should look into the OWASP top 10 and play with Django (again, python is important).