If you find yourself on this page, you probably are looking for resources on how to get into CTFs & security.
Discussion
Real-time(ish) help from a Real People™️.
- Discord: Reverse Engineering, OpenToAll, picoCTF, CryptoHack
- Reddit: /r/securityCTF, /r/LiveOverflow
Check out the practice challenges table below - any practice sites with 💬 have an active Discord or IRC for discussion.
Video Content Creators (YouTube/Twitch)
Verbal and visual walkthroughs of challenges, concepts, & news.
- Security Creators
A randomized list of security video creators/streamers, information about the type of content, and where/when to watch.
Podcasts
Insight into the CTF + security communities and news.
- CTF Radiooo
A CTF podcast with teachers, creators, competitors and more from around the CTF community!
- Darknet Diaries
A podcast about the hacker community and going-ons.
CTFs
Live competitions.
There are not many beginner-friendly CTFs. If you choose to play CTFs, it’s recommended you stick to a problem and continue working on it after the CTF if you don’t finish. Playing with a team is also highly recommended!
You can keep an eye out for other beginner-friendly CTFs on CTFTime. Challenge writeups can be found on CTFTime Writeups, CTF Writeups2, and with a quick Google.
Practice Challenges
Challenges at your own pace.
Here are my top recommended practice sites for absolute beginners:
- pwn.college 💬
- Best of Courses: Livestream and recorded lectures. Tons of challenges for each topic, really leaning into “practice makes perfect”.
- Pwnable.kr 💬
- Best of Pwn: *nix pwnables of progressing difficulty.
- Microcorruption
- Best of Rev: Embedded reverse engineering challenges an online debugging environment.
- PortSwigger Web Security Academy
- Best of Web: Extensive learning materials & labs for practice. Learning material is very detailed and labs are setup as checkpoints throughout the learning material.
- CryptoHack 💬
- Best of Crypto: Lessons and challenges of increasing difficulty covering crypto basics and more advanced topics.
- picoGym 💬
- Best of Variety: Many challenges targeting a variety of skills, created for absolute beginners.