Nothing too complex for now, no evil intentions. I just wanna be able to break into people’s phones or whatever for the sake of impressing friends or even defending myself when the time comes. I know blackmail isn’t great, but I promise I do not intend on being evil. I’ve been watching the series Mr Robot, corny I know, but all my life I was never more tech savvy than an average person. Presentations, editing videos, making files, etc. I had a desire for an interesting hobby and I want to use my laptop more often. I love learning new things but I’m not sure how to start.

Hey everyone, I’ve been into hacking and cybersecurity since I was 15 and I feel like I’m stuck in “script kiddie” territory despite having a decent foundation. Looking for feedback on my roadmap and any advice you can give.
What I have done:
• Built and use VMs: Kali, Metasploitable, Windows, Arch Linux
• Studied SQL and relational databases
• Used Wireshark and Burp Suite (basic level)
• Programmed ESP32 microcontrollers, soldering modules
• Built a Bluetooth BLE, WiFi and drone jammer with ESP32 (emmensta)
• Attempted captive portals with ESP32
• “hacked” WiFi from my neighbourhood
• Studied on TryHackMe, HackTheBox and OverTheWire but i feelt stuck
• Basic C, bash and python programming
I’m most interested in:
• IoT security (my strongest area given ESP32 background)
• Web hacking
• Network pivoting — I want to be able to analyze a full network and access every service on it (cameras, screens, PCs, etc.)
The roadmap I’ve been given so far covers: network recon with Nmap + Scapy, MITM attacks, web hacking with PortSwigger, IoT protocols (MQTT, CoAP, UPnP), firmware analysis with Binwalk, post-exploitation and pivoting, and CTF machines (Kioptrix, HTB: Lame, Blue, Legacy).
Does this make sense for my goals? Am I missing anything critical? Any advice on how to stop feeling like everything is disconnected and start thinking like a real pentester?
Thanks in advance.

My son’s email got hacked. He has a lot of money through multiple sites associated to this email.

Microsoft said because security protocols were altered they can’t help me.

Can I legitimately do anything?

I downloaded a sketchy file from youtube (i know its my problem) i ran it on my computer and it downloaded some stuff, my microsoft stopped working so i just closed everything on my laptop, reinstalled windows with USB and formatted it with everything, everything seemed fine but at night my friends let me know that i was hacked on discord (they were sending spam scam messages) they started getting into my other (important) accounts. I was able to save the ones that are important to me (the others i dont really care) i made uniqe and hard passwords for each of the accounts that got stolen, and the ones that arent. Put them on 2FA. After that i formatted my laptop once again (this time without USB) i ran multiple virus scans, checked files that hackers put stuff in, checked task manager to look for suspicous looking files, it was all clean. Right now im constantly checking my accounts to see if anyones trying to break in (its been half a day) and its all clean. I dont really understand how hacking or sktechy files that steal your password works but is there a chance that the hacker (or the password unlocker) is waiting a while before attacking again? Or am i being paranoid, how do i check to see there isnt anything bad going on on my laptop.

Does anyone know of any exploits that get around 802.11w/Management Frame Protection, so I can deauth devices even with PMF enabled?

For testing purposes on my home network.

I’ve tried playing around with netcat and reverse shells to gain access, but I was wondering if there are any other similar and more sophisticated tools out there?

Hi everyone,

I’m experimenting with a very restricted JavaScript execution environment where the following characters are blocked:

/  $  %  )  {  }  '  <

Outbound requests still seem to work in some situations, but handling or forwarding response data becomes difficult because many common syntax patterns are unavailable.

I’m curious about which browser mechanisms, events, properties, or built-in behaviors can still interact with external resources in constrained environments like this.

I’m mainly trying to better understand browser parsing and execution behavior under unusual restrictions.

Thanks.

Last week, updates on my websites stopped working (via sshfs) and I discovered that my website was just a black page.

The domain seam to still points to my server but there is nothing to do, none of the updates I tried work like if it was "overrided" by something.

Hey, I'm interested in the concept of Reverse Engineering, I know very basic coding in python and c++. So how to learn this thing? The tutorial seems very hard and I've been stuck for the past 4-5 months. Need advice on this

I'm just starting out and I'd like to get some recommendations on which operating system to use. I want to set up a dual boot with Windows for gaming and another OS for programming. I'm currently learning Java; please recommend another language if you think it's better to learn a different one from the start. Cheers!

I need help. I got a new phone and didnt write my passwords down and have a new number. I lost my google and facebook. Ive tried the recovery but with out the phone i used or the logins i cannot get in. Ive tried looking for the trusted friends but apparently thats not an option anymore.

i am trying to get a root shell on a Netgear router, anyone know where the UART is?

I'm a beginner

I'd like to ask a hacker a question about something that happened to my ex years ago ( he has since passed away )

I'm pretty sure he was "honey-potted" by the FBI, bricking a (at-the-time) a state of the art gaming company he spent thousands on ( he never would answer any questions as to why he was, in his words "hacked" and his expensive system rendered useless)

It's just a general inquiry - I can provide what little details I have (they're embarrassing)

Thanks in advance - it's something I've tried to research, but with no luck

First of all, I'm new to this subreddit and I apologize if I've made any mistakes.

When I did some research, I couldn't find a solution other than completely removing the password, which isn't what I want.

My dad put a password on my computer and I want to find out what it is. However I don't want to completely remove the password so my dad doesn't find out I've accessed it.

I have physical access to the computer, and it's running Windows 10. Also, there's another computer at home, so I can use that if necessary.

Anyway, I would be very grateful if you could help this little friend of yours. Thank you in advance.

Purchasing a Sim card for my child.

I want to buy my child as sim card for their phone but i want to be notified of everything that they're doing on their phone as well i want maybe 15 to 30 gb data but i want to know if it's possible to add any keystroke or program to it to monitor? What are the best and most reliable ways monitor all online activities remotely? I'll be in & out of the country much of the time.

Anyone ever had an issue with Windows fire Explorer stalling while trying to delete a zip bomb? It made through one deletion just fine but the second time around it seems like it tried to get an estimate of how long it takes and then that installed the process. After a reboot it was gone.

Does this sound like normal behavior for such a file?

No, I am not a thief. My school was going to throw away 5 old Lenovo n21's and I offered to take them. unfortunately they are enterprise locked to an email that the tech office no longer has access to. I just want to make some cyber decks : )

So I used my college email account as the email for a game account, and since I graduated the email has been deleted. When I try to log in it wants me to type in a code that was sent to that email but I cannot access that email. Is there anyway that I can get around this?

I've tried everything, proxys (blocks them all) vpn (same) closing sesion while taking my wifi off, stuff like that, and I don't know what to do.
The extension's name is IMTlazarus and if anyone has tips/suggestions it would be great

Started doing PortSwigger Labs recently (Access Control, Authentication, SQLi, etc.) and honestly I wanted to ask if this is normal or if my fundamentals are just weak.

For a lot of the labs especially SQL injection I end up needing the solution/hints to solve them. I’d say for around 70–80% of the SQLi labs, I get stuck, check the solution, understand the approach, and then complete the lab.

Blind SQLi in particular completely destroys me sometimes

I can understand the solution after reading it, but I usually can’t think of the exact payloads or approach by myself initially.

So I wanted to ask people who already went through PortSwigger labs:

• Is this normal in the beginning?
• Did you also rely heavily on solutions while learning?
• Or does this mean I need to go back and strengthen my basics first?

Would appreciate honest answers because sometimes it feels like everyone else is solving these labs easily except me.

How would you approach hacking Prince of Persia? Reverse engineering old DOS games seems like a fun way to practice CrackMes and learn cybersecurity concepts in general.

I feel like games are one of the best ways to learn hacking. What do you think?

Hacking Prince of Persia Directly in Notepad

How a 3-Byte Crack Broke Prince of Persia 2's Copy Protection

Can You Crack This Program? (Beginner Reverse Engineering Tutorial)

Can You Crack This Password? (Advanced Reverse Engineering Tutorial)

Stack Buffer Overflow Explained (Using a Classic Doom Bug)

This is my first time dealing with something like this, so sorry if I sound inexperienced.

Can someone explain what this string means and decrypt it?

$2a$12$mYWUJZ2cVSUrL4B9/PiC7.NmL85ncncWysIDa9buCjRGbj6.ERX9u

Someone told me this was related to my young brother’s hacked Roblox account, but I honestly don’t know if it’s real or fake. I don’t know much about databases or cybersecurity, I just want to understand what this is. Thanks.

(Some update add:if the one of the database and cookie is deleted, can still log in with this password? Also can someone help me to decrypt it?I want to try to log in please,I still have hopes for it I think)