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Discussion on: I'm 18 and I do systems security, Ask Me Anything!

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ijlee2 profile image
Isaac Lee

Hello. From your experience, what advice would you give to people at young age (say, 13-18 years old) who want to get into tech industry?

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icyphox profile image
Anirudh

The "tech industry" is an extremely generic term. What field in tech, specifically?

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ijlee2 profile image
Isaac Lee

Indeed, my bad. Can you give us advice on getting into information security? Thanks!

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icyphox profile image
Anirudh

Getting started with infosec would require a basic understanding of how a computer itself functions at a primitive level, networking and protocols (and how they tie together), operating systems, web technologies. Some programming knowledge wouldn't hurt either; scripting in Python, Ruby, shell.
I love telling people that you should learn to make stuff, before learning to break stuff :)

Above all, security and hacking, in general, requires a creative mindset with out-of-the-box thinking. There is no single checklist to be followed, ever!

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avasconcelos114 profile image
Andre Vasconcelos

I love telling people that you should learn to make stuff, before learning to break stuff

That is actually a great way to look at it! Thank you for sharing your experiences with us :)

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Kostas Sar

I would really like to look into this part of the industry and networks are my weakest point, so I should start from there.

But out of curiosity do you have any books or courses to begin with the "and how they tie together" part of your answer?

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icyphox profile image
Anirudh

I didn't really follow any book/course to learn that bit, mostly just hands-on. But, I actually liked the RITx Network Security course on edX. YMMV, though.