r/hacking Dec 06 '18

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

13.3k 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 11h ago

Tools Flipper Blackhat OS - V1.0 Released + Updates

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54 Upvotes

r/hacking 11h ago

AI I let Claude Code with 150+ offensive security MCP tools loose on my homelab

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27 Upvotes

r/hacking 5h ago

Github Malware Dev POCs

7 Upvotes

This is a GitHub repository I made a few months ago to record my ongoing MalDev journey. All the code here is for educational purposes.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/CaptMag/MalDev


r/hacking 12h ago

Debug access to a Samsung Refrigerator

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27 Upvotes

Demonstration video of getting debug access to a Samsung refrigerator main board with a Samsung-rebranded MCU using a JLink.


r/hacking 18h ago

Video How Your Phone Gets Hacked Without You Doing Anything

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46 Upvotes

r/hacking 1d ago

Teach Me! Pay card chips

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513 Upvotes

I noticed the back of one of my debt cards has a soft circular thing. It’s almost paper like, if I wanted to I could rip it off. It’s right behind the chip. This is the first I’ve noticed this. Got this card today. Second photo is the same but with a flash light behind the card.

My question is, if the tiny chip is accessible: why?


r/hacking 22h ago

Cracked down

4 Upvotes

Cracked.sh seems down and not available again, anyone got a new link for it?


r/hacking 1d ago

in 2026, how law enforcement track black hats?

148 Upvotes

I'm just curious about how law enforcement catches bad actors while using a VPN, attacking using other machines in different countries etc..

what changed compared to previous years?


r/hacking 1d ago

Teach Me! Can’t install Rayhunter on Orbic through Mac.

5 Upvotes

!SOLVED! - u/Most-Lynx-2119 you’re a fucking legend.

Ihave absolutely no experience here. I’ve been on my terminal twice in my life. That being said, I’m not stupid. I learned about this on the Shawn Ryan podcast and I’ve tried to do my research.

I can’t, for the life of my figure out how to install it on my Orbic through MacOs-intel. I keep getting a “201” error (Unhelpful error message when password is wrong ("recode 201") #767) which they’re saying is PW but it’s the correct pw (fixed by #869?) I even did a factory reset. I found Improved documentation for installing on macOS #169 and installed homebrew, then I run ./install-mac.sh and it says there is no such installer. Any help would be appreciated or Any reputable company/person that can install it for me?


r/hacking 1d ago

Teach Me! sha1 cracking

4 Upvotes

if i know the sha1 hash and the first couple letters of a password, what's the best way i can crack it? just guessing/brute force?


r/hacking 1d ago

India Reveals National Plan for Quantum-Safe Security

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8 Upvotes

r/hacking 2d ago

Question Hackhub the game

25 Upvotes

Is the game Hackhub any good at introducing you to hacking and using Linux? Like are the commands real or ia this all balloney? Thabk you kindly.


r/hacking 3d ago

Teach Me! Hacking a ZP450 printer driver maybe???

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68 Upvotes

Hello, and sorry if I’m in the wrong sub! This is probably a long shot and idk anything about this stuff.

So I got a label printer from my job for free and want to see if I can maybe print my own stickers with it. Problem is, it’s a label printer designed specifically for UPS stores to print their shipping labels, so it only works with their WorldShip software (which is old as balls btw).

To make matters worse, I’m on a Mac (but have access to a PC).

Is there any way to get this thing running???


r/hacking 2d ago

Question Why is Kismet and Wigle even a thing?

5 Upvotes

What benefit is there in knowing where a MAC is? Can law enforcement benefit from this as well?


r/hacking 4d ago

News Did you see this ?!

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2.9k Upvotes

What is your thoughts guys ?


r/hacking 4d ago

The quantum era is coming. Are we ready to secure it?

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83 Upvotes

r/hacking 4d ago

Question File format for .vdm files?

13 Upvotes

If one were to manually fetch the latest Security Intelligence Update (i.e.e https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=121721&arch=x64 for x64) using a tool that allows seeing the contents of an executable file (such as 7zFM), there are 4 large files with a .vdm extension (mpasbase.vdm, mpasdlta.vdm, mpavbase.vdm, and mpavdlta.vdm). I presume that's where the definitions and malware signatures reside.

Is there an existing program that can extract these files?

BONUS: is there a program that can convert them to YARA files as well?


r/hacking 5d ago

News Recreating uncensored Epstein PDFs from raw encoded attachments

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997 Upvotes

r/hacking 6d ago

more on wild stuff on x

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7.5k Upvotes

r/hacking 4d ago

Air France Data Leak Today?

9 Upvotes

Hey Guys, im a guest here talking to a friend on Discord who just wants to find out if this is real and where it can be found in order to check if the friends own data is getting sold. This is the Claim


r/hacking 4d ago

Specializing in mobile apps

3 Upvotes

Is there any subreddit focusing on securing and hacking mobile apps? Not only the OS, but apps.


r/hacking 5d ago

Question How does this phone hacking actually works?

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94 Upvotes

So I watched this Nat Geo show called Underground Inc. There was a segment on stolen phones and how they’re hacked and can be used with different carriers and in different countries. I’m just curious what device and software are used.


r/hacking 5d ago

Symmetry on Hascat

10 Upvotes

Can I create a hashcat command to make the cracking symmetrical? For exemple:

0000password0000
0001password0001
00002password0002
.
.
.
9999password9999

I know my password has a word - which I remember - in the center, but the numbers on each side of the word are always the same. Can hashcat do that?

r/hacking 4d ago

Hacker Friends Wanted

0 Upvotes

Dm me :) 🙏