I was looking into ethical hacking as I was interested in CyberSec and was looking for a practical way to get in.

After some reading and playing around, I see its potential.

It’s a great field to apply concepts from various domains of software development.

Here is what I had to use in only 2 days of doing ethical hacking on HackThisSite.

  1. HTML
  2. JavaScript
  3. HTTP (Protocol Knowledge)
  4. Backend
  5. Common Software Development Patterns
  6. SQL
  7. Web servers (Apache, Nginx)
  8. Thinking like a Notorious Hacker
  9. Street Smarts

As you can see, ethical hacking requires using knowledge from various spectrum of software development to get work done.

In other words, it’s extremely practical.

I would recommend everyone to try it.

  1. Google “OWASP Top 10” and learn the concepts mentioned there.
  2. Then, create an account on HackThisSite(dot)org and try solving the challenges.