Overview

A basic introduction by DragonDefender

Welcome, welcome! This page functions as a general overview to the world of Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is super important and all different types of people are needed here! I love Cybersecurity and mentoring others into the field, so if you have any questions, feel free to reach out :)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Before I get too far into this, I want to make sure everyone understands a very important part of Cybersecurity: doing anything without permission is very, very illegal. Even if you don't realize what you're doing is illegal, it's still considered a crime, so please exercise caution. Hopefully you saw my word of warning on the homepage. Best case scenario is that you get a warning, worst case scenario, government gets involved.

When I first started, I found it helpful to have some examples and/or guidelines to follow, so I'll provide some here. To be clear though, this is not legal advice and some countries are more or less restrictive than others. You'll have to determine what is legal and illegal in your country on your own. Laws are also constantly changing, so even if it's true now, be aware that things that were legal today, may be illegal in the future. Finally, note that the examples provided are not meant to be exhaustive or entirely accurate. You are ultimately responsible for yourself and understanding the law on your own.

Generally, potentially illegal things are things done without written permission. If the owner hasn't explicitly allowed you to do *whatever*, consider it illegal. I've read some posts about people "hacking" their friends' devices, such as using FlipperZero on their friends' phones. If your friend has not given you permission, it's still illegal even if they are your friends, and if your friend ever wants to press charges, depending on the country, they could probably do so!

Generally, potentially legal things are things done with the owner's written permission. If the owner is you, then you probably don't need written consent. But for anything else, it's advisable. It's also advisable to keep that written permission with you while you're doing the test. For example, do some digging on the 2019 Coalfire pentesting incident for a cautionary tale. In addition to just having written permission, you should also have a very *specific* list of items that you are allowed to do and not allowed to do and when.

Again, generally, for CTFs and homehacking, as long as you obey the rules (CTFs will tell you not to attack the CTF infrastructure for example), you should be okay. Just don't accidentally use nmap or another tool on the wrong IP.

Finally, for anyone who actually wants to use this information illegally for whatever reason: you're going to get caught. And for those that think, "Oh, if I'm caught, I can just work for the government as a paid hacker." That may have been true 20 years ago, but it's not true now. The government and private companies have their pick of trustworthy non-criminal cybersecurity professionals. They're not going to bail you out of jail to work for them. You're welcome to try that route, but you're not going to get far and will probably rot in jail wishing you had made a better choice.

So now that we've gone over all of that and you agree that you are using this for educational purposes only - to help you understand cybersecurity concepts and improve your own security measures - onward and upward!

Cybersecurity Overview

What is cybersecurity and what kind of work can I expect? The short answer is Cybersecurity is a method and/or group of people dedicated to protecting electronic systems and data. The longer answer is... well, basically the rest of this site.

There are lots of different divisions within Cybersecurity, so the answer to the second question is also long. There are lots of ways to divide the categories, but I'd say that in it's basic form (and I'm sure some people will disagree) there are five major/broad categories in Cybersecurity: Red Team, Blue Team, Security Engineering, Regulations/Compliance, and Education. Under each, you could break the roles down further:

• Red Team

  • App, System, Web, Network Pentester

  • Bug Bounty

  • Vulnerability Management

• Blue Team

  • Security Operations

  • Incident Response

  • Threat Intelligence

  • Digital Forensics

• Security Engineering

  • Identity Access, Asset, Network, and Cloud Security/Management

  • Software Development Security (DevOps)

  • Vulnerability Management

• Regulations/Compliance

  • Risk Assessment

  • Regulations and Compliance

  • Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning

  • Legal

• Education

  • Simulated Phishing Test

  • Compliance Training

  • User Education

There are lots more specific roles and some of the roles don't really fit within one category or another, such as Vulnerability Management which could fit under Red Team or Security Engineering, but that's the basic gist. Lots of different types of roles that need a diverse set of people! Of course, since I'm a blue teamer, I'm a bit biased toward the Blue Team roles. lol

Of course, the above is not the only way to divide Cybersecurity, but it makes the most sense to me.