2024 AD — He Learnt to Hack with OffSec

My name is Luc. I am a 33 years old French software engineer, living in France. A couple months ago I started studying OffSec's PEN-200 course (Penetration Testing with Kali Linux) and here I'm telling you a bit about it, along with my 2024 goals.

I work in software development since 2013 and I had identified Offensive Security and its Penetration Testing course years ago. I remember being immediately fascinated by the angle: learn to hack, to later strengthen security systems.

I'm a curious person and I remember considering this field along with learning Rust or in-depth Bluetooth Low Energy. I discussed about Offensive Security many times with my coworkers, trying to picture how relevant this was, either to our company or the current IT market.
I understood that it required a significant investment of time. I wanted to dive in but having a full time job and tailoring as a hobby (winning over half my flat space and most of my free time), I concluded it was not reasonable.

A few years passed and all of a sudden — in a couple weeks of time —, the startup I worked for collapsed. Bam. I became unemployed and I was offered a state financial support to look for work, take a course or change my career. I immediately started to build a list of the cybersecurity certifications that French company seek in their job offers, and I was comforted to see that OSCP was the most frequent one. I also went to a cybersecurity fair in the end of 2023, to make sure this particular certification was a safe bet. Unsurprisingly it was: all of the companies I met were aware of this certification, and most of them value it greatly, including for entry-level positions.

Learning hacking with OffSec then revealed itself the obvious thing to do! Before subscribing I spent two months trying to get the French state to pay the course, but since we have very different demands regarding grants, I ended up paying a year of Learn One all by myself.

And here I go, back to school from my living-room, excited to unveil all the secrets behind everyday TV news involving des pirates informatiques leading la cyber-guerre. Yeah that's right baby, soon enough I will be a part of this! 😎

This is also the sad part about it: knowing about hacking sorts of kill the magic that surrounds it. Probably in the same way that learning to code wipes the charm of a well crafted device or application, because now you know quite precisely how you reach this remote device, cast a show in the kitchen or sort years of pictures in mere seconds. But the satisfaction of growing a deep and vast understanding of how things work remain, and that's the most important.

At the end of 2023 I first worked on the PEN-103 course (Kali Linux Revealed). Now I have challenged myself to follow PEN-200's twelve week learning plan, so I should be taking the first test attempt around March or April 2024. (By the way and despite what is indicated in the learning plan schedule, it takes me more than 20-24h a week to complete the programmes. Some capstone exercises are keeping me busy for hours!)
Because it's easy to write that I'll succeed, I will, and then I will spend three months both looking for a new job, and learning the PEN-210 course that is included in the Learn One subscription. Woooh, confidence!

So according to the plan, in 2024 I'll have learnt hacking with OffSec. Hurray 🎉