Start of a Journey

Hello, I am Byte Phantom.

I'm just an ordinary person with an extraordinary curiosity about hacking, or as it's professionally known, cybersecurity. This blog is about what sparked that curiosity and why cybersecurity became my passion. Let's start from the beginning—the day I first used a computer. Some parts might be a bit bore, but I want to share it all to clear my mind.

Every hacker’s journey starts somewhere. Mine started with nothing—no computer, no experience, just curiosity. This is how I found my way into cybersecurity.

The First Encounter

As a kid, I didn't have access to a computer like many others. It wasn’t until I was 12 years old that I got the chance to use a relative's computer. Until then, I hadn’t even played digital games.

Once I had the opportunity, I played games from day to night. Since the computer was far from home and I had school, I could only visit on weekends. Those moments sparked my interest in computers.

When computer classes started at school, I was always excited to use the lab. This led me to choose the computer science group in my 11th grade.

Discovering Programming

I've always liked technical things, but theory bored me to tears. Everything was normal until the practical exam in C programming.

I hadn't studied, but as I skimmed through the programs, something clicked. The realization that a program does exactly what we tell it to do made programming easier for me to understand.

I loved programming because it creates what we instruct it to create. The errors? That’s on us, not the machine. This realization hooked me, and I consistently scored well in programming subjects.

The Pandemic Shift

Then, the pandemic hit. I became lazy, just sitting at home doing nothing.

One day, I decided to change my life. Instead of wasting time, I chose to be productive. I explored self-learning methods to study programming, which gave me a strong enough foundation to excel in college.

Exploring New Horizons

I had a habit of trying different things because we never know our potential until we explore. Since I already liked computers, I experimented with:
✔️ Video editing
✔️ Photo editing
✔️ Coding

That’s when I stumbled across hacking.

Let's be honest—hacking looks cool in movies, and everyone is curious about it. I wanted to learn, so I searched online and found TryHackMe, a beginner-friendly platform.

At the time, I only had my phone, so I used it to:

• Learn the basics of hacking

• Watch tons of YouTube videos

• Play around with Termux and become a “script kiddie”

Then, I discovered Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges, and I was hooked! Finding flags, running cool commands—it was fun and exciting.

Diving into Web Security

As I explored different areas of hacking, web penetration testing caught my attention.

Why? Because almost every company has a website, making it a valuable skill.

I started with:
✔️ YouTube videos
✔️ Cybersecurity groups on Telegram
✔️ PortSwigger Web Security Academy (Burp Suite Labs)

The hands-on experience felt rewarding, and I wanted to stay as productive as possible.

The Bug Bounty Challenge

Things were going well, and I even started bug bounty hunting on Bugcrowd and HackerOne.

But reality hit hard. Unlike CTFs, real bug bounties were a different beast.

I spent 4+ hours staring at websites and request logs, trying to make sense of everything. I lacked the fundamentals and had jumped in too fast. It became overwhelming, and I started procrastinating.

The Struggle with Consistency

Cybersecurity is a vast field. I tried learning too many things at once, which led to burnout.

Slowly, I lost interest in studying. Instead of progressing, I wasted time playing games.

Choosing a Path

When my computer science course ended, I had two options:
💻 Become a developer
🔓 Become a hacker

Cybersecurity felt like the right path. But my family didn’t believe in self-learning and wanted me to take a higher studies course. To satisfy them, I joined a postgraduate (PG) program in cybersecurity.

The Final Year

Once I started my PG program, I couldn’t focus. The teaching wasn’t great, and I struggled to study on my own.

I blamed my low-spec laptop as an excuse. I tried multiple times to restart my learning, but nothing stuck.

Now, with only one year left, I realized:

⚠️ If I don’t make progress now, I’ll regret it forever.

This is my final chance to take cybersecurity seriously. I want to make this year count.

The Purpose of This Blog

The best way to learn is to teach others.

That’s why I created this blog—to document my journey and help others along the way.

My Plan

✔️ Start from an absolute beginner level
✔️ Track and showcase my progress & skills
✔️ Prove to myself (and others) that I can do this

🚀 This blog marks the beginning of my cybersecurity journey.

If you're also starting out in cybersecurity, let’s learn together! Feel free to comment or share your own journey

With great expectations, this blog marks the start of a journey.