Ethical hacking course for 13 year old

September 26, 2024 5:05 AM

I'd like to gift a young person an ethical hacking or cybersecurity course (not cyber safety). Must be online. Any recommendations?

This young person is already testing boundaries and somehow accessed his school administrative files through his school-provided laptop or tablet, I'm not sure what he has or what he did. He mentioned that he could see grades, but that he didn't do anything with the files. He was just pleased with himself that he got in. I told him about ethical hacking and that he could even do this for good.

Thinking it'd be a good time to gift a course. Any recommendations? Any words of caution about potential to use the skills for nefarious purposes such that his parents will never speak to me again?

posted by reader to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

I just saw someone recommending the courses at https://academy.tcm-sec.com/courses/.

I have no personal experience with the courses, but Practical Ethical Hacking course for example looks like an OK introduction to different areas of IT security hacking (I work as professional penetration tester and it seems to cover many things I do/use daily) for a quite low price.

Some other free/cheap but more unstructured options are the PortSwigger Web Security Academy that is focused on hacking web applications (we typically get new employees to do the labs there to learn about hacking web apps) and Hack The Box where you get access to vulnerable virtual machines, often combining different techniques in each lab.

There are more expensive alternatives combined with certifications such as the OSCP mentioned in the first link or various SANS courses, but those are quite expensive and targeted at people that can get their employer to pay for it or that need a certification for a job.

The most important thing about using the skills is having permission - doing it e.g. school or work otherwise can get really bad quickly these days... The main ways around it is bug bounties, setting up vulnerable systems yourself, or doing labs such as Hack The Box and similar services.
posted by rpn at 6:46 AM on September 26

Yeah, playing some capture the flag is a fun way to see what it might look like as a career. I like this site from Carnegie Mellon. Some good videos, some samples you can play, and ways to get more involved.
posted by advicepig at 11:19 AM on September 26 [1 favorite]

Two thoughts from someone who used to sell/arrange ethical hacking training: 1) avoid boot camps, which focus more on helping people shore up existing skill sets so that they can get certifications rather than actually teaching new skills; and 2) have a look at your local community college, which may have a semester long program that actually tries to teach these skills from the ground up.

Ethical hacking is such a recognized business world skill now that any course you get will be completely above board and focused on legal, helpful skills, not anything nefarious.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:46 AM on September 28