My first step into cybersecurity
On a Thursday afternoon, I was trying to figure out what to do next, while staring at an empty browser tab.
Why a separate account
You might be asking yourself: what's the benefit of all that? It's not just about having a clean environment for the security tools I'll be using — it's also about separating my personal and learning life so I can stay focused without distractions, and protecting my personal data in case any of the tools I'm working with turn out to be untrustworthy.
My stack
After a bit of research, here's the stack I settled on for this journey:
- VS Code — for writing and organizing code
- Git & GitHub — for version control and sharing my work
- Python — because most security tools and scripts rely on it
- WSL2 + Ubuntu — my first real exposure to the Linux command line, all while staying on Windows, an OS I'm already comfortable with
I chose all of these based on a few criteria, especially popularity — which means access to communities and resources that can help solve any problem I run into along the way.
The learning path ahead
But all of this setup would be useless without real knowledge to back it up. For that, I chose Harvard's CS50 series — starting with the basics of computer science, then moving to Python, and finally an introduction to cybersecurity. This order isn't random — I need the fundamentals before I can understand Python properly, and I need Python before diving into cybersecurity-specific tools and scripts.
Closing
I'm really excited to share my progress with you throughout this journey — feel free to follow along for updates.
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