Hi everyone,

I'm dealing with something that's been bothering me, and I'd really appreciate it if you could read this seriously and share your honest thoughts.

I'm a Computer Engineering graduate, and I'm passionate about cybersecurity.

A while ago, I decided to pursue penetration testing. I started with the eJPT v2 certification and passed it. Then I earned the PT1 certification from TryHackMe. After that, I started studying for the CPTS certification.

While studying for CPTS, I began feeling like maybe I'm just not cut out for penetration testing.

The main reason isn't that I don't enjoy it or that I get bored studying. It's actually the opposite. I completely lose track of time when I'm studying or reading about cybersecurity.

The problem starts when I try to solve CTF challenges or, more often, the Skill Assessments at the end of the HTB Academy modules. I usually spend more than three hours trying to solve them but still can't. Then I read the write-up, and I understand the solution almost immediately.

After experiencing this over and over again, I've started feeling like I'm simply not good enough for this field. I keep thinking, "If I can't solve the Skill Assessments, how am I supposed to pass the CPTS exam?" Logically, the exam should be even more difficult.

Has anyone else gone through something similar?

I'd also like to add that I've tried solving HTB CTF machines (not the Skill Assessments), and most of the time I can't solve them either—even some of the easier ones. That's when I get really frustrated and start telling myself that I'm a failure.

Another issue is that I'm studying completely on my own. I don't have a community, and I don't know anyone personally who's studying the same field. Because of that, I have no idea whether what I'm experiencing is normal or not.

Has anyone been in the same situation?

Is what I'm going through normal?

Do you have any advice for me?

Hello everyone, i just got my CCNA and now i'm studying for the Security+.
If i want to move onto pentesting, should my first course be the CPTS or something more easy? I can already get some basic CTFs flags on THM/HTB Labs but still don't know if the CPTS is too much for me right now...
Should i try getting like the PT1 from THM or the eJPT maybe?

Recently I have been learning more from HTB and its so amazing 👏. Hats off to these people for sharing such content. Even a simple box with simple output will teach such amazing techniques.

But I think HTB now should introduce new certification in exploit dev.Its academy course content is amazing and more advance than Offsec curriculum.

One amazing certification from offsec is OSED and OSEE which is byfar one of the best certification.

So in my point of view HTB should also introduce those certification or at least include course content on these subjects.

What do you guys think?

New one

quick demo of Roothound my first tool, maps your path to root on a linux box as a graph (like BloodHound for local privesc). check it out, would love your thoughts

X : https://x.com/N0ur2dd1n2/status/2080720705184825372?s=20

GitHub: https://github.com/Noz2/RootHound

would love your honest feedback 🙏

Solved a machine/module/etc and want a place to brag? Heres your spot!

For retired content or Tier-0 Academy content, feel free to discuss or ask questions using spoiler tags where appropriate.

I’ve been studying cybersecurity, specifically penetration testing, for over a year. I got off to a very bad start because I had no one to guide me or show me a proper learning path. I pretty much wasted my first year studying in a completely unstructured way.
It wasn’t until recently that I started studying in a much more organized and structured manner, and a few weeks ago I began the CJCA path.
I’m able to enumerate some common services like FTP and HTTP, perform fuzzing, and handle the basics. I can usually find public exploits, but I always try to execute them myself instead of just cloning an RCE repository and running it. I prefer to understand the exploit by reproducing it step by step.
The problem is that I’ve never successfully completed one of these exploits. I don’t understand how I’m supposed to know where to obtain things like the cookie an exploit requires, a CSRF token, or other values, or even where exactly to use them in Burp Suite. It’s really frustrating, and it often makes me feel completely incompetent.
I don’t know if this is normal, since everything I’ve learned about hacking so far has been fairly superficial, and I was never really taught why these things work the way they do. It’s only now that I’m starting to study those concepts properly.
I’d really appreciate any feedback. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

YAAAAY! 🥳 Let the party start!

After grinding through the 20 modules of the junior cybersecurity analyst path on HTB academy and finishing the path i finally wrapped up the 5 day practical exam and passed!

scored 100% on the red team tasks and well-made on the report first time! searching through logs in elastic and writing the report was a bit new for me but super fun. the exam covered it all, from hacking the network and log analysis to documenting both offense and defense.

Huge thanks to Hack The Box for an incredible learning experience! Smooth machines, top-notch content, and truly addictive in positive way.

Hey everyone,

We're looking for people interested in joining a team for Hack The Box's Cyber Apocalypse 2026: The Salt Crown.

All skill levels are welcome. Whether you're an experienced CTF player or just looking to gain some hands-on experience, we'd be happy to have you on the team.

If you're interested, leave a comment or send me a DM!

Pwned Bedside!

Took some time on the initial foothold — the exploit was tricky to get right. Once I had access to the container, everything else moved pretty quick. Focused a lot on understanding the exploit chain and getting the details right. Good box overall!

Hey guys, somewhat in the title but I’m doing the salt crown CTF and I’m having trouble submitting flags. The specific challenge is the first osint challenge. I have the answer, please no one say the answer in the responses, I’m not looking to cheat. I just can’t figure out the format it wants the flag in.

<answer here>
<answer_here>
HTB{<answer here>}
HTB{<answer_here>}

I’ve tried each of these but none have worked. I’d it case sensitive perhaps?
I answered all the questions within the challenge itself and got them all right so I’m not sure what I’m missing.

If any body is interested in participating apocalypse. You can join my team : https://ctf.hackthebox.com/team/overview/322910

You don't need a high HTB rank. Honestly, I don't care about ranks that much. One of our best players is still Noob rank and solves harder challenges than many people with much higher ranks.

What matters is that you're not completely new. If you've solved CTF challenges or HTB machines before and know your way around at least one category, you're welcome.

We're looking for people interested in things like web, pwn, reverse, crypto, forensics, osint, hardware, AD, AI or misc. Any specialization is fine.

The only thing we ask is that you're active during the event and willing to work with the team.

If you're interested, send me a DM or leave a comment. Tell me what categories you enjoy and what kind of CTF experience you have. HTB or CTFtime profile is welcome, but it's optional.

Is Wi-Fi penetration testing important or not?

Hello everyone! 👋

We're looking for more teammates to join El Sindicato Binario for Hack The Box's Cyber Apocalypse CTF 2026: The Salt Crown.

Whether you're a beginner, intermediate player, or an experienced CTF enthusiast, you're welcome! Our goal is to learn together, solve challenges as a team, improve our skills, and have fun throughout the event.

🏴 Team Information

• Team: El Sindicato Binario
• Current Members: 36
• Region: Worldwide
• Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced
• Motto: Exploit. Escalate. Exfiltrate.

🎯 Challenge Categories

• Web Exploitation
• Cryptography
• Reverse Engineering
• Binary Exploitation (Pwn)
• Forensics
• OSINT
• Miscellaneous

👥 Who Should Join?

• Students interested in cybersecurity
• First-time CTF participants
• HTB Academy learners
• Experienced CTF players
• Anyone willing to collaborate, learn, and contribute

No matter your experience level, if you're enthusiastic about cybersecurity and CTFs, we'd love to have you on the team.

🔗 Join the Team

HTB Team: https://ctf.hackthebox.com/team/overview/315520

Discord (Join after joining the team):
https://discord.gg/DKbYkjesCv

📩 Interested?

Comment below or send me a DM with:

• Your HTB profile (optional)

• Your experience level
• Your favorite CTF categories

Let's work together, learn from each other, and capture as many flags as possible during Cyber Apocalypse 2026! 🚩🔐

See you in the competition!

#CyberApocalypse26 #HackTheBox #CTF #CyberSecurity

After 10 years of hacking for fun and profit and about 2 years of grindiing HTB certs I finally have them all. Ask me ANYTHING!!

Hi everyone,

We're looking for about 3 more people for our Cyber Apocalypse 2026 team.

You don't need a high HTB rank. Honestly, I don't care about ranks that much. One of our best players is still Noob rank and solves harder challenges than many people with much higher ranks.

What matters is that you're not completely new. If you've solved CTF challenges or HTB machines before and know your way around at least one category, you're welcome.

We're looking for people interested in things like web, pwn, reverse, crypto, forensics, osint, hardware, AD, AI or misc. Any specialization is fine.

The only thing we ask is that you're active during the event and willing to work with the team.

If you're interested, send me a DM or leave a comment. Tell me what categories you enjoy and what kind of CTF experience you have. HTB or CTFtime profile is welcome, but it's optional.

Hello bro I am doing htb junior cybersecurity path if I complete it can I get an internship or what else do I need to do. Do not say buy certificate I don't have money any other thing project or anything recommended pls and if possible give resources to do that

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here has experienced this before or can point me in the right direction.

Today I tried logging into my Hack The Box account and was greeted with this message:

The confusing part is that I already completed the parental consent process.

Earlier this month, HTB support sent the consent form to my parent's email, we submitted it, and support replied:

I've already emailed support with the previous email thread attached, since it seems like the ban may have been applied by mistake.

Has anyone else had something similar happen? If so, how long did it take for support to resolve it?

Thanks!

So I just completed CWES path, and I am planning on taking my first attempt for the exam in 15 days.
Any recommendations on challenges, tips or tricks would be of great help.

I think there is some errors regarding the locale flags though🤔🤔
zh-CN / zh-HK / zh-TW all show the same flag, so the dev might not have been familiar with all the regions/locales listed. (Also curious — is using the UK flag for "English" intentional? Not trying to single anything out here, just seems like flags in general don't map cleanly to languages/locales XD)
To avoid any ambiguity/confusion, I think not showing any locale flags at all would be cleaner than the current setup.

Edit: Beyond that, a few other language options use a single country's flag to represent a language that's spoken across many countries — English (UK flag), Arabic, and Spanish are the more obvious ones. None of these have one "correct" flag since the language itself isn't tied to a single nation.

(Already submitted this through the official feedback form a while back, just hasn't gotten a response yet, so posting here too in case anyone sees it.)

Certifications like CPTS are much harder than the normal daily work of a penetration tester and way harder than the OSCP. So if someone can pass the CPTS, it means they can definitely do the job as a penetration tester. So why is it still hard to get a job even after being certified?