Since a few years I have seen many questions on forums pretty similar to that one “how to learn hacking ?“, and usually the answer is “you have to try“. Usually the answers are not very helpful nor redirect the new ethical hackers to good ressources.

To answer that question myself, I would begin with “what do you know about hacking ?” and “what is hacking for you ?“. There are many different types of “hacking”, for example : modifying an object to make it more useful, but I believe that all the hacking types have something in common, “the way hackers think”. Hacking is all about knowledge and thinking, and has one of my professor always said :

” The only limit to everything is your brain”

That said, I came across this website this morning and thought it was well organised if someone wanted to learn software exploitation. The website allows you to download virtual machines , and use the codes inside to make you learn exploitation from the beginning.  The exercises given in the multiple virtual machines are somehow “real” and will help to increase considerably your knowledge in ethical hacking.

“Welcome

exploit-exercises.com provides a variety of virtual machines, documentation and challenges that can be used to learn about a variety of computer security issues such as privilege escalation, vulnerability analysis, exploit development, debugging, reverse engineering.”

And here you go (link), have fun  and remember hacking has to be legal.