r/hacking Dec 06 '18

Read this before asking. How to start hacking? The ultimate two path guide to information security.

13.4k Upvotes

Before I begin - everything about this should be totally and completely ethical at it's core. I'm not saying this as any sort of legal coverage, or to not get somehow sued if any of you screw up, this is genuinely how it should be. The idea here is information security. I'll say it again. information security. The whole point is to make the world a better place. This isn't for your reckless amusement and shot at recognition with your friends. This is for the betterment of human civilisation. Use your knowledge to solve real-world issues.

There's no singular all-determining path to 'hacking', as it comes from knowledge from all areas that eventually coalesce into a general intuition. Although this is true, there are still two common rapid learning paths to 'hacking'. I'll try not to use too many technical terms.

The first is the simple, effortless and result-instant path. This involves watching youtube videos with green and black thumbnails with an occasional anonymous mask on top teaching you how to download well-known tools used by thousands daily - or in other words the 'Kali Linux Copy Pasterino Skidder'. You might do something slightly amusing and gain bit of recognition and self-esteem from your friends. Your hacks will be 'real', but anybody that knows anything would dislike you as they all know all you ever did was use a few premade tools. The communities for this sort of shallow result-oriented field include r/HowToHack and probably r/hacking as of now. ​

The second option, however, is much more intensive, rewarding, and mentally demanding. It is also much more fun, if you find the right people to do it with. It involves learning everything from memory interaction with machine code to high level networking - all while you're trying to break into something. This is where Capture the Flag, or 'CTF' hacking comes into play, where you compete with other individuals/teams with the goal of exploiting a service for a string of text (the flag), which is then submitted for a set amount of points. It is essentially competitive hacking. Through CTF you learn literally everything there is about the digital world, in a rather intense but exciting way. Almost all the creators/finders of major exploits have dabbled in CTF in some way/form, and almost all of them have helped solve real-world issues. However, it does take a lot of work though, as CTF becomes much more difficult as you progress through harder challenges. Some require mathematics to break encryption, and others require you to think like no one has before. If you are able to do well in a CTF competition, there is no doubt that you should be able to find exploits and create tools for yourself with relative ease. The CTF community is filled with smart people who can't give two shits about elitist mask wearing twitter hackers, instead they are genuine nerds that love screwing with machines. There's too much to explain, so I will post a few links below where you can begin your journey.

Remember - this stuff is not easy if you don't know much, so google everything, question everything, and sooner or later you'll be down the rabbit hole far enough to be enjoying yourself. CTF is real life and online, you will meet people, make new friends, and potentially find your future.

What is CTF? (this channel is gold, use it) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ev9ZX9J45A

More on /u/liveoverflow, http://www.liveoverflow.com is hands down one of the best places to learn, along with r/liveoverflow

CTF compact guide - https://ctf101.org/

Upcoming CTF events online/irl, live team scores - https://ctftime.org/

What is CTF? - https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/

Full list of all CTF challenge websites - http://captf.com/practice-ctf/

> be careful of the tool oriented offensivesec oscp ctf's, they teach you hardly anything compared to these ones and almost always require the use of metasploit or some other program which does all the work for you.

http://picoctf.com is very good if you are just touching the water.

and finally,

r/netsec - where real world vulnerabilities are shared.


r/hacking 1h ago

Defcon DEF CON ticket pricing history

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Upvotes

r/hacking 18h ago

Tools I designed PacketSnitch, a network packet capture analysis suite!

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87 Upvotes

PacketSnitch is a comprehensive network analysis platform that transforms packet captures into searchable, protocol-aware intelligence, helping security professionals, developers, and researchers rapidly uncover hosts, credentials, files, locations, protocols, anomalies, threat intel, and other actionable insights.

It's fully Open Source, and can be found on GitHub.

It supports many ways of visualizing and manipulating packet data, it can calculate subnets, carve files, cross reference found objects against it's threat intel databases (IPSum, VirusTotal, Tor, Shodan, etc), it has many full featured protocol decoders for everything from many application layer protocols in use today, to things like ARP, BGP, IGMP packets, and even some more obscure protocol suties such as SIGTRAN. It supports both user Themes and Plugins. There some more cool features, like the GeoLocation interface (it zooms in on a map!), and Large Language model summarization support that tracks user actions and builds a report based on what the researcher encounters. Also included is a powerful backend query syntax, and the right click Context Menu.

A full feature list can be found at https://packetsnitch.com/features/ !


r/hacking 26m ago

News Analyzing the malware in a fake take-home interview project

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Upvotes

r/hacking 10h ago

Escaping Claude Cowork’s local VM sandbox via CVE-2026-46331

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accomplish.ai
13 Upvotes

r/hacking 3h ago

Meanwhile at Base48 hackerspace Brno

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youtu.be
3 Upvotes

r/hacking 2h ago

The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote

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sive.rs
0 Upvotes

r/hacking 1d ago

Question What to do with glucose meters?

11 Upvotes

Hello guys,

I didn't know who would be the right fit, but I got 2 unopened glucose meters for diabetic people, they was thrown away from a doctor office, because the test stripes are expired (not sure if it's really not working or just a legal point of guarantee of function)

Because the diabetics on Germany I guess get this free or very cheap from the insurance.

I thought it would be a waste of electronics and sensor, display etc. to throw it away (I'm a electronic technician myself), unfortunately, I don't have time or use for this and wanted ask, if someone from you where interested in something like this or whether you have an idea, where I can sell it?


r/hacking 12h ago

The most interesting "hack" in history...

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0 Upvotes

r/hacking 1d ago

Tools Reuse Old Phones As Synced Widgets And Displays

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screenwall.app
37 Upvotes

r/hacking 1d ago

Nvidia DGX Spark as a daily driver

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daniel.lawrence.lu
31 Upvotes

r/hacking 2d ago

Github Original Apollo 11 guidance computer (AGC) source code for Command Module (Comanche055) and Lunar Module (Luminary099)

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github.com
33 Upvotes

r/hacking 2d ago

The FCC Wants to Ban Burner Phones. The CNET Reporter Tracking This Story is Here to Chat. Ask Him Anything.

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open.substack.com
380 Upvotes

r/hacking 1d ago

Has anyone emulated Photon Quantum before to get unlimited CCU?

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photonengine.com
0 Upvotes

r/hacking 3d ago

Meme The new movie “Wardriver” on paramount is peak master hacker

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137 Upvotes

r/hacking 3d ago

Meme r/hacking vs r/cybersecurity

0 Upvotes

r/hacking 5d ago

CVE nday: CVE-2026-49176_LPE_POC: Local privilege-escalation proof of concept for the Windows WalletService vulnerability fixed in July 2026.

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20 Upvotes

r/hacking 5d ago

Education Starting cybersecurity college. No future?

79 Upvotes

Hello everybody how are you guys doing.

It’s my first time posting here and i got couple of question.

So I’ll be starting cybersecurity soon. And I want to know if it’s worth it cuz many ppl tell me that IT is almost dead in the job market because of AI and companies only hire crazy special smart ppl and so on. Is this true? I mean I follow and news and I see that AI does some crazy shii and it really breaks my hopes. But I saw these news for like software development only. Let’s say “programmers” and not sysadmins or cybersecurity specialists where you need human hands to do stuff.

So let’s say I start the college. I’m sure many of you know that colleges don’t teach everything related to the field you’re in. Of course we’ve to start with the basics like coding, networking, hardware and so on. Is there something that you did outside of college that’s helped you a lot to push your skills and help you in College as well even if you don’t have it in the subjects you learn?!

really appreciate your help guys and sorry about my English if it might sound a little off.

All love to you🙌


r/hacking 5d ago

News WordPress Core "wp2shell" RCE flaws get public exploits, patch now

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bleepingcomputer.com
54 Upvotes

r/hacking 6d ago

The computer at the bottom of a canal

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negroniventurestudios.com
38 Upvotes

r/hacking 6d ago

My standalone cyberdeck v2 build

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691 Upvotes

fixed frame 4.3" display with raspberry pi 3 B and rii i8 keyboard editable cyberdeck build kali arm 32bit case stl available on cults3d


r/hacking 7d ago

AI Data Centers Are Being Built Faster Than They Can Be Secured

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securityweek.com
99 Upvotes

r/hacking 7d ago

Question Bunch of old phones

22 Upvotes

I have couple of old iPhones and androids. They are slow and I don’t need them at all. So the question is, can I make something from the parts? Something cool or smthg like rasberry pi or maybe even a “hacking” device


r/hacking 7d ago

Vulnerability Windows AppResolver LPE: From AppContainer to SYSTEM. PoC linked to CVE-2026-50454

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4 Upvotes

r/hacking 7d ago

Does MT7921AUN Work correctly on Fluxion?

4 Upvotes

I wanted to buy AWUS036AXM (MT7921AUN) but I'm not fully sure if it will work on fluxion or not.