What are /r/oscp's favorite Products & Services?

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If you can, read Georgia Weidman's "Penetration Testing: A hands-on introduction to Hacking" and also watch her advanced penetration course on https://www.cybrary.it/ This will give you a good feel for what's coming in the OSCP. Also, as others mentioned, do Vuln Hub and HTB.

By default, you get “kali-linux-default” for the default installation of kali. But they’ve documented a number of other metapackages as well.

https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/metapackages/

There are a number of tools that aren’t installed because they aren’t used often or simply to decrease the amount of time spent doing the installation.

A lot of people would choose to install “kali-linux-everything” and then complain because it would take forever when some of the packages that it’s downloading are around 6GB in size.

Fair point. I tried putting my markdown into Obsidian.md, which can export to PDF natively, but when I copied and pasted it, the formatting got all messed up. I was suuuuper tired at this point and wasn't thinking clearly at this point. Better preparation would've solved all my problems.

You'll be wasting your time. You've got RHCAS/CCNA and some Python - you're ready for OSCP.

If you want to overprepare, buy a HTB VIP membership and blast through as many boxes as you can, taking detailed notes as you go (ideally using a report template). If you want basic outline of the course material, check out Georgia Weidman's free course: https://www.cybrary.it/course/advanced-penetration-testing/

This course - https://www.cybrary.it/course/advanced-penetration-testing/ - covers how to attack from the web using cross-site scripting, SQL injection attacks, remote and local file inclusion and how to understand the defender of the network you're breaking into to. You'll also learn tricks for exploiting a network.

The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118026470/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zPGMFbG4F69BB

Try this book for OSWE. I wouldn’t call it a prerequisite but the more skills you have going in the easier it is. If you developed a good workflow, methodology, and try harder attitude you’ll be fine.

first, start with the basics. watch some tutorials about networking, linux, and some scripting languages ( bash and python - its enough for now). and after you master these 3, start doing CTF on hackthissite for exemple. You need to learn how to think outside the box, dont rush to the htb cuz its not for beginners. I recommend to start reading books, for me it helped a lot ( you can start with this book, its a good read for a beginner - and dont limit yourself only to the exemples in the book, try to think about other ones and implement them in order to really understand what is happening and why). if you have questions, feel free to ask

Try taking notes on the HTB walkthroughs on the IPPSec YouTube channel. He taught me things like mounting malicious SMB/Samba shares, forging signed certificates, and bruting each letter and number of a hash via SQL injection.

He does make extensive use of Burp with FoxyProxy. He has this injection flaw trick where he validates a injection point by pinging himself and checking if he captures the ICMP packets on tcpdump, then drops a reverse shell if its working.

Also, there is no dubstep. God forbid those teenager made "hacking videos" with dubstep.

It might be worth updating Firefox in your VM. The recent mozilla cert issue broke most add-ons, and the only way I was able to fix FoxyProxy was to update Firefox to the version that fixed the issue, then reinstall the add-on.

https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Ethical-Hacking-Scratch-penetration/dp/1788622057/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1537727061&sr=8-3&keywords=learn+ethical+hacking&dpID=51o1s3GFRUL&preST=_SX258_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Cant get any easier than this.

here

You want to read 6.2.

So basically a VM is sperated from your operating system by a hypervisor, and yes depending upon how the network settings are configured, it wall also be separated from your network as well.

Granted I don't know about brainpan specifically.

I think BitterProgress is correct on this, but I've also seen a lot of folks having issues if they're connecting to Proving Grounds by "stacking" the openvpn file while also running a commercial VPN (PrivateInternetAccess, NordVPN, JoeRoganPrivateVPN, etc)

I think it might be - have a look

https://www.notion.so/personal?utm\_source=google&utm\_campaign=2075789713&utm\_medium=85296174628&utm\_content=476117427522&utm\_term=notion%20pricing&targetid=aud-1190785634793:kwd-653753019048

For exam lab, I will say OSCP practice lab and material provided in PDF is enough :)

You need not to go too deep for the exam lab.
Read HTB AD-based machines walkthrough and note down the tools and tricks
focus of lateral moment as well.

If you want a list, here you go :)
https://www.xmind.net/m/5dypm8/

Thanks for that you seem to know your stuff. Mine comes with two 8 GB slots so I was thinking of replacing one of the 8s with this 32GB from Amazon. Would 40GB be enough do you think?

I've no idea about RAM to be honest but apparently it is dual rank as it says 2Rx8 on the listing despite Amazon listing it as single which means it's better so I've heard.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZLC7VNH/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_JGC4YK5JEM1SWTT6V73E?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Atom and VNote these are the two tools I settled on and all my problems have been solved. Text editors are really under appreciated. Atom because its lighter and was faster in my experience when compared to VSCode which anyway is an excellent choice. I use it on my host machine but not on my VM.

I store my notes of machine with Atom in a directory structure like this. My notes on things like Enumeration, Priv Esc is on VNote because its easier to read and works for me. My tmux template automatically creates directories and pops atom in the current directory.

Had the same issues, I fixed them by following this guide from the kali site to install python 2 side by side with python3. This will fix the request issues etc and allow you to run python2 stuff with ‘python’ and python3 with ‘python3’

https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/using-eol-python-versions/

There used to be a problem but it was fixed.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/screen-sharing-linux-chromium-fix

I was using Ubuntu as my host.

I'm very happy to hear that! Confidence is half of the way there. How are you coming along?

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You're the first one to ask for a donate button, actually. You can buy me a beer here - I'll add this to my blog as well! Thanks for the suggestion :)

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/chvancooten

If anyone still struggles with connecting to the LABS or slowness especially if you are in the UAE one solution suggested by offsec is to run kali on a VPS (Virtual Private Server) and connect to their LAB VPN via the VPS.

Digital ocean seems to be the cheapest option you just need to build the virtual machine which is quit easy, keep in mind offsec cannot support/troubleshoot if you connect to their LAB from a VPS. Here is the link explaining how to setup Kali on DigitalOcean

https://www.kali.org/docs/cloud/digitalocean/

A lot of people have trouble with cherry tree, an excellent alternative is Joplin, which will be replacing cherrytree in Kali in the 2020.3 release.

source: https://www.kali.org/news/kali-linux-2020-2-release/

Download a portable build so you're free of everything you'd done already. This is what I did for my last exam as I don't use Chrome and don't particularly want it installing on my system.

Sadly Firefox refused to play ball on this attempt, but my previous one it worked far better than Chrome. But if you want to give it a go, you can grab it in a portable build also.

I don't have input on what is better or why, but Kali 2020 does include Kazam.

>Kazam is a simple screen recording program that will capture the content of your screen and record a video file that can be played by any video player that supports VP8/WebM video format.

It really depends on how comfortable you are with networking. You basically just need to know the basics of how subnet addressing work, understand how DNS and ARP works and you should be fine. Georgia Weidman goes over all you probably need to know in the "Linux part 5" module.

https://www.cybrary.it/course/advanced-penetration-testing/

I would recommend spending time getting really good at reading TCP dump and wireshark captures. That is honestly a better use of your time imo. Get really comfortable with that if you are not already. Not only does it help you in pen testing and the course, but if some exploit or shell you're trying keeps failing when you're doing the course it is a good way to troubleshoot what needs to be fixed.

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To be blunt, you can't really afford to be an OS "snob" anymore. Learn Windows. Learn macOS. Learn Cisco IOS. On the network front, check out https://www.gns3.com/ to more deeply learn about routing.

Knowing how to attack Linux systems is great, but there are all kinds of other targets out there that you are missing.

This is the one I used for my two exam attempts: https://www.amazon.com/A4Tech-Webcam-Built-Microphone-PK-910H/dp/B0093HLV1I

The USB cord length is about a meter which is fine. Unless your room is massive all you really need to do is swivel the camera 360 degrees. Note the resolution on my one isn't that great so I couldn't accurately show my ID, but offsec were cool with me taking a photo of id on my phone and uploading to my computer

I have some, even have some courses on PWK and I was thinking of getting this book: https://www.amazon.com/Kali-Linux-Practical-strategies-penetration/dp/1789952301

However, I am not sure about Pockt. It seems ALL their books have absurdly great ratings. I have another book on pwk, but it is fairly outdated even though it is written in 2019. If you guys know of any pwk books, please point me in the right direction and I will purchase them. I see a lot of people saying HTB, I have an account, but is THM not a good resource? To me, THM seems a bit more organized and thorough.

You should be able to do it . But regardless , get a software VPN anyway . That’s now a MUST when you surf Internet from a public WiFi and it’s like 8 to 10 bucks a month. I recommend you ExpressVPN (faster and more servers ) and NordVPN (cheaper but still good and decent speeds)

I’ve skimmed through Windows Internals to get a lot of in depth knowledge of Windows. Setting up a Windows VM to practice on is always a good idea too.

Amazon link for Windows internals:

Windows Internals, Part 1 (Developer Reference) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735684189/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hCiKEbRH5SNT7

I'm exactly in your same situation besides the work scenario. I'm a one man MSP/Consultant for a few clients, ranging from medium to large. All my clients have been from word of mouth, so it's been growing for the past 3-4 years. I've considered dropping my clients and work a single full-time job to pursue my OSCP and CEH since I paid for both at 50% off during Cyber Monday... Not to mention that I've enrolled myself into a Masters of Science of Cyber Security program in the spring.. I finally found someone super capable that I met during a CTF that really needs a job, so I hired him. That alleviated my workload.

As you can imagine I have ZERO personal time, I feel you can tough out this job and study on the side. With my schedule I can sneak in a few games of PUBG, during my train commutes I have eBooks for days. Never stop my friend, you stop you die. Also, I reccomend this book: Time Management for System Administrators

I want to at least tackle a workbook on the Linux command line, review networking protocols and such, and work through Georgia Weidman's <em>Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking</em>, otherwise I fear I'd be throwing money down the drain with lab access.

Are there prerequisite certifications and/or pre-OSCP hands-on training materials that this sub recommends for noobs like me? :-)