It was a lovely evening when I opened
the contact form of
ehacking.net and I found several emails asking
the said question; this event is not once in a blue moon at all, it
seems a regular habit of beginners or may be intermediate level too.
They keep asking the same question, so I should say that “How to
become a hacker” is a million dollar question.
There was a time in 90’s when movies
were creating and showing hacker culture, their personalities and
lifestyle; some of these movies have shown hackers as a hero and some
made them villain. At the end, movies have created a mindset of our
generation to become a hacker in order to achieve their objectives,
whether they are good or bad.
When someone ask this question, I used
to float a counter question; “Why do you want to become a hacker ?
Why not IT security professional or penetration tester ?” And
believe me most of the time people say that it sounds good to be a
hacker. My simple is point is that:
“Media has created this mentality to
be a hacker instead of professional
penetration tester”
Neither I will define the word hacker
here, nor I will differentiate between penetration tester and hacker
but in this series of “to be a hacker” I will show a pathway to
become an IT security professional.
If you cannot handle the difficulties
and challenges then leave this field at your earliest, IT security is
a dynamic field which requires education, certification, human skills
and impatient while learning something. So you should be waiting to
handle loads of challenges coming your way to become a hacker
Penetration tester.
Education & Skill
Set
Any degree related to computer sciences
is highly recommended because while studying computer science you get
to know about the programming, scripting, networking (wired &
wireless), web,database, cryptography and many other things that will
help you throughout your IT security career. Apart from computer
sciences, engineering degrees like Telecommunication and electronic
degree are also a good option; these degrees enhance your networking
and hardware skills, and you may learn the software side while
working 🙂
If you don’t have any degree, then come
on you need not to worry about it; in history many outstanding
professionals did not complete their degree. A little difference is
that you need to learn those skills by yourself, believe me you can
learn everything free online that a university could teach you.
The Bottom line is that, you need a
particular skill set; it does not matter from where you acquired
those skills.
Follow the Master,
Become the Master
You have got the suitable education now
what; have you become the hacker ? No! As I said challenges, it
starts from here. To become the master, you need to follow the
master; you need a mentor who can show you the path, direction and
who share his/her experiences and the one who make you what you
wanted yourself to be made.
Be wise while selecting the mentor, it
defines your future. Here master can be anyone, it could be a human
being, a blog or website and group or place of discussion; you may
have as many mentors as you want. Be focused, plan your action to
achieve the objectives (but first you need to define your
objectives).
Conclusion
No no no, this is not enough to become
a
hacker but let me conclude the first part of this series. We have
discussed the essential parts that play their important roles while
making a professional IT security expert. In the next articles, we
will discuss the values, culture, certification and many other things
that you should have to become a hacker.
Next to Read
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