Learning Update-Week 8

This week marks the end of the challenge I gave myself:

Post a weekly update on what I’ve been learning about, my thoughts on what I’ve seen so far, and what I’m planning to look at for the next week. These posts will go up on my blog on Mondays, and I’m going to run this challenge for the next 8 weeks. At the end of the 8 weeks, I’ll look at how things went, and evaluate whether or not to make this a more regular feature here.

So, how did I do?

I did the full 8 weeks, although I definitely missed the mark on the Mondays. Artificial deadlines can be challenging sometimes, and this finding certainly highlighted that for me. Something else I noticed, particularly toward the end, is that I wanted to narrow my focus on fewer different training resources, as I felt a bit scattered around the 6 week mark. This tracks for me, as I find myself wanting to zoom in and out, depending on the goal. Focus/Defocus is a useful heuristic in software testing (h/t to Michael Bolton for introducing it to me), and I find it a natural fit when I’m doing self-led study.

Something that I also noticed, is that making time for training in between my other responsibilities, including self-care, can be more difficult when the goal is less concrete (eg. completing a specific course). Small chunk lessons like those used in PentesterLab and TryHackMe definitely helped me slot in a little training when I could.

What learning did I do this week?

PentesterLab-Essential Badge

I planned for 3 exercises on this badge, and got 1 done.

TryHackMe

I had planned to finish off a single module, but didn’t manage to get to it this week.

Reading-Practical Social Engineering: A Primer for the Ethical Hacker

I did get some reading time this week, and managed to get through a couple of chapters. I like Joe’s style of writing, and will definitely continue reading this one.

Wrap-Up

I don’t think I’ll be tackling this challenge again, but it definitely yielded some interesting results. I’m actually starting to work on some training towards my Security+ certification, and I think I’ll be focusing on that for the next little while.