We Talk to ‘The Security Noob’ Alex Giles

For our latest edition of ‘Stories from Cybersecurity’, we talked to aspiring cybersecurity professional, Alex Giles ( @Muldwych) . Alex already works in the IT field, but not in cybersecurity, which is where his passion lies.  He has been busy teaching himself all things hacking and cybersecurity via online courses and books. We are aware that many of our readers are in the same position, and this is where Alex has something unique to offer.

Alex has been documenting his journey from novice to expert at his blog titled "The Security Noob". We found the blog to be both engaging and informative for anyone looking to learn more about white hat hacking, so we decided to reach out to Alex for a chat. Let's look at what he had to say. 

What types of resources have you found most useful for learning security? (Videos, courses, blogs, qualifications) 

I have really enjoyed working my way through the courses and books. I have been using UDEMY quite a bit for the video courses and working through some books like ‘Linux Basics for Hackers’ by Occupy the Web.

For those who don't know, Udemy.com is an online learning platform aimed at professional adults and students. Recently I also got access to stationx.net where there are some wonderful courses. I am working through ‘Intro to Linux Shell Scripting’ by Jason Cannon at the moment. 

What advice do you have for fellow aspiring security professionals? 

Well, I am not quite a “professional” yet but hopefully soon. I would say you need to be passionate about it as it’s not something you can take one course in and suddenly know it all. To be proficient, you really need skills in lots of areas like Networking, Linux, and Python - so the passion must be strong. 

What is it you like about hacking/security compared to other areas of IT? 

There are several things I love about it! I love constantly learning and absorbing information about all the new tools that become available. The new techniques in offensive security are also of great interest to me. Hacking at its core is problem-solving, which is what I love the most. I like solving puzzles and ethical hacking is like a HUGE puzzle. 

What are your hopes for the future? 

I desperately want to take the jump over to Cybersecurity in my day to day job, and this is what I'm working towards. I am trying to do as much training as I can by myself, but I will have to see if I need to eventually just bite the bullet and get the PWK certificate.