Professional Guide to Become a Hacker in 1 Year – (2022 Updated)

Hello, my friend, I hope you are doing great these days. I know you are here just because you want to know How to Become a Hacker as soon as possible. This is the era of the internet and the chances of being hacked on the internet are very high. 

But if you know how any attacker (aka Hacker) attacks can attack your system for any reason then there are many chances that you can defend yourself from these kinds of hacking attacks.

But let me tell you first that I’m not with those guys who just want to learn hacking techniques only for hacking the social media accounts of others or doing shitty things. In this blog post, I’ll tell you How can you become a hacker professionally for the sake of keeping yourself and the internet a safer place.

This article is only for those who are serious about hacking and want to become an Ethical hacker and want to build their carrier in this field. It means after reading this article you will understand what is called hacking and How to become a hacker?

But before deep diving into the process of becoming a hacker let me tell you about a few things.

What is Hacking exactly?

Guys, many of us think that hacking social media accounts or hacking computers/androids are called hacking, but let me first clear your doubt because it is very important for you to know. 

In simple words gaining unauthorized access to any device or any network is called hacking. Hacking is an ART that requires lots of time and dedication to master, you have to learn a lot and you have to continuously work on upgrading your skills if you want to survive in this field. 

So, if you are ready then congratulations you are most welcome in the world of hacking. 

Who is called a Real Hacker?

A hacker is a techy guy who uses his knowledge and skills to find out the vulnerability of the system and use those vulnerabilities to gain access to that particular system or network. It’s just simple as that (just kidding). My friend, it’s not as simple as it sounds. 

Breaking into the security requires lots of time and effort then a successful hack is done. During this process, the situation might get out of control, and it might possible that sometimes things don’t go according to you, but in the end, if you are a real hacker then you will try, try and try and then boom. So, this is will make you a real hacker. 

Essential Skills to become a Professional Hacker

To be honest with you guys in simple words you’ll have to learn all the things related to technology because you want to become a hacker and what a hacker does is break into the security of the system. 

I’m saying this because it might be possible that you want to hack the web application or maybe you want to hack the mobile application, maybe the server, the network, etc. possibilities are endless. 

So, trust me guys if you don’t know how these things work then you will end up with lots of problems and then you will say I can never be a good hacker. I’m just telling this to you because I don’t want you to be a Script Kiddie.

I’m also not saying that to hack a web application you have to be a web developer but understanding the basic concept of how the web application is developed and how it works will be very beneficial if you want to hack the website, it’s just a single example because it is not possible to explain everything in just a single article.

So before learning how to hack first learn how it works. 

Important steps to become a hacker

Apart from these boring theories, these are the fundamental things you should learn. Once you got a good understanding of these then you can move to the intermediate level.

Great, so now you know what makes an excellent hacker, let’s determine what skills you need. If you want to become a hacker, you must decide what you will specialize in, because there are many jobs. While the specialization may differ, all hackers have these fundamental skills.

Learn how to code

It’s not so much about the actual programming languages but more about understanding programming concepts. If you understand how something was designed, you’ll know where the vulnerabilities are. 

Here, I’ve listed the languages in the order I think you should learn them, starting with the most important and ending with the least important. I’ll tell you a little about why I think these are so crucial.

• HTML & CSS

It’s not directly related to hacking, but it gives you an introduction to the foundation of the web and it’s an excellent language for creating things quickly and with a lot of leeway for error. An excellent addition would be CSS, to make those web pages shine! 

• PHP

PHP allows you to go from boring static websites to sophisticated back-end-driven workhorses with snazzy web applications. You will be able to construct applications to store data and much more. The downside of this language is that it may allow some things that other languages such as ASPX don’t. However, the advantage of being able to easily deploy a PHP application and get a bit more error tolerance is large. 

• Python

Python is a multi-platform generalist language that any hacker can use to create a quick script in a hurry. Because Python is multi-platform, it runs on all operating systems that support it, but it may run much faster than other bulkier languages like Java. It’s also less picky about how it is used but requires users to make their code clean and readable by design.

Learn how to install and use Linux

You may be alarmed at first, particularly if you are unfamiliar with using anything besides Windows. Don’t let your fear stop you, because many of the popular hacking tools are Unix-based, and thus many hackers prefer it because of its open source and fully customizable.

Although you can hack on a Windows machine, you’ll have to work a bit harder starting since most tutorials and tools are written for Unix.

Learn Networking Basics

It’s crucial to know how data is routed across a network. You must understand how information travels between computers so that you can investigate it and interpret it correctly later on. It’s a good idea to start learning the fundamentals early.

For this reason, it’s worth starting with the fundamental stuff like setting up your wireless network at home. You might also try exploring firewall settings and port forwarding, in addition to establishing an access point. Once you’re comfortable, you may then begin investigating other networks.

Start reading books and articles

The image we have in our heads about hacking is probably wrong because of pop culture. We have grown up believing that hackers bash away on a keyboard. 

To see how real hackers’ methods are applied in the world, read from the real hackers to see how they do it. 

It will help you to understand what you’re doing on your own if you learn about real hacking from them. Don’t be discouraged by the complexity, though. As you continue to read, you will begin to grasp things you did not prior. 

You won’t understand everything in the beginning, but as you proceed, you’ll discover more and more things that you did not previously.

Now I’ve covered a lot of basic concepts, it’s time to choose our specialization niche in our hacking career. Because there are lots of aspects of hacking and you can’t master them all at once. So, it is a good idea to choose a particular field in hacking that excites you more.

Choosing a specialized field

At the beginning of your career as a penetration tester (aka hacker), you’ll have to choose a specialized area to begin. Options are endless until you find which excites you more.

I mean to say that there are many types of hackers and they are divided into several categories like web application hacker, network hacker, malware analyst, etc… 

The learning paths of all the different types of hackers are different.  Skilled ethical hackers are always in demand by the government and almost every industry, so while learning never think that you are wasting your time.

Resources to Become a Hacker

Here I’m sharing some resources with you that I think will be very helpful for you to start learning everything from scratch. 

There is a whole list of resources that Husnain Fareed has shared on GitHub. 

https://github.com/husnainfareed/Awesome-Ethical-Hacking-Resources

I’ll highly recommend you to bookmark this Github page, it will be very helpful for you to get started. 

Additionally, here I’m attaching an amazing video of Tech Xpress on becoming a hacker. In his video, he provided a piece of very good information for beginners who want to become a hacker. I recommend you to watch his video once to get more information.

Practice will make you a pro hacker

To become a Hacker you’ll have to practice a lot because hacking is an Art, and just only reading books & articles, enrolling in boot camps, or watching videos will never make you a hacker. 

What you have to do is to practice what you’ve learned and for that here I’m sharing some website links which you can use to practice your hacking skills. 

http://www.itsecgames.com/

https://www.vulnerablewebapps.org/

https://owasp.org/www-project-webgoat/

http://hack-yourself-first.com/

https://github.com/s4n7h0/xvwa

These are the applications that are built for testing and learning purposes. As you know that you can’t test your hacking skills on an application that you don’t own because it will be illegal and you will be in trouble. 

So, don’t get yourself in trouble and stay on the safe side, it’s a good idea to test your hacking skills on your virtual lab or on the application which is built for it.

Some key points you should remember:

• Be a Self-Learner: No one can teach you hacking in the end only you can make yourself one.
• Solve the problem on your own: Learn to solve your problems yourself because in your journey you will end up with lots of technical and non-technical problems and you’ll have to solve them on your own. 
• Learn Daily: In the field of cybersecurity you’ll have to build a habit of learning by reading articles, write-ups, videos & books because in this industry new technologies are always coming, and learning how they work will keep you updated.
• Think differently: As a hacker, on the internet, you have to be open-minded. Everything connected to the internet is might be vulnerable to some kind of attack. So, you’ll have to be creative and think out of the box.

Conclusion

So, my friend this information is enough for you to get started on your ethical hacking journey. I hope you might have found this article helpful. I’ve tried to cover almost everything which I believe is important for you to get started. If you think some information is incorrect or missing kindly tell me in the comments. It will be very helpful for me to create quality content for you in the future. 

Share this article with your friends and family who want to get started in the field of ethical hacking. So that’s it for now I’ll see you in the next article. Happy Hacking!

Also Read: What is A Red Hat Hacker? – A Comprehensive Guide (2022)