I firmly believe that there is no better way to set yourself apart than learning AD pentesting.

If you truly want to become a pentester (especially quickly) you MUST learn Active Directory.

Now that I've become more involved with hiring new pentesting candidates at my job,

It truly baffles me how many people are so qualified in every major area, except...

When asked about Active Directory, they become completely lost.

It's not just an interview issue either, nearly all pentesting jobs demand that you know it.

They say 95% of all companies use Active Directory for their internal network.

In my personal experience, it's been 100%.

If you are completely lost by all of this Active Directory talk, let me simplify it for you...

Active Directory is a technology that allows companies to organize employees into various groups so that it's easier to manage.

Need to grant the IT guy permission to access the server? No problem.

But what if you had 50 IT guys? Sounds tedious, right?

With Active Directory, you would simply assign IT employees to a group and set the desired permissions at the group level.

Great. So what's the problem?

Active Directory permissions and settings are complex and there are often misconfigurations.

That's where we come in.

I'm not interested in this Active Directory stuff, I just wanna hack web apps, mobile apps, etc.

You still need to learn Active Directory.

The reality is that these technologies don't exist in isolation.

The web app that you hack is likely either joined to an Active Directory domain or able to talk to another server that is (e.g. a database server).

Same thing with the API that the mobile app is using.

So what can you do after you compromise these apps?

Well, if you don't understand Active Directory, absolutely nothing.

This is why it's so crucial to learn this stuff, it directly impacts the value you can provide as a tester.

In reality most people put off learning AD because they are intimidated by it.

It's really not that difficult. I firmly believe anyone can learn it. Even a complete beginner.

It's just different than most other areas of pentesting and that scares people.

Now that you know the importance of learning this, I want you to consider one thing...

Time.

It's your mind's way of calling you to action.

To rise up to the challenge.

That is a very good thing, because here's the reality...

Most people try to silence this call. 

They do everything they can to run away from this uncomfortable feeling.

They are afraid to step into the darkness.

To embrace the fear and uncertainty.

But...

Perhaps you've even started on your learning journey already.

You’ve tried learning pentesting.

Maybe you even tried “Learning 2 Code” before.

You’ve done other trainings out there on the internet.

It was cool and all, but there was something about it that just didn’t hold your attention.

Let me just say that most of the tutorials and trainings out there are bad...

Like, really bad...

And here's why:

1. Either, the content is comprehensible but boring as hell to work through.
2. Or, the content is actually interesting but way too difficult even though it's labeled as "beginner"
3. If you get stuck anywhere in the process, the only solution is to bang your head against the wall for hours (a.k.a. Googling your ass off)
4. You are working in total isolation. There is no sense of community or network to learn from and motivate you.

So the fact that you slogged through (or part of the way through them) and didn't completely give up is amazing.

I'm serious... You should praise yourself for that. You are in the minority.

Being a complete beginner is by far one of the hardest phases of the cyber security journey.

Once you reach an intermediate level, there is so much more engaging learning you can do.

This makes it significantly easier to stick to it and level up.

The truth is this.

It’s not that you aren’t cut out for this field or anything like that.

You simply followed the wrong programs.

Knowledge is learned and memorized, but skill can only be acquired by doing.

In the real world most things are skill-based rather than knowledge-based.

Consider this scenario...

Two people, Dan and Stan, want to become world class fighters.

Dan reads a book a week on fighting theory for an entire year but never steps in the ring.

Stan doesn't read any fighting books but instead trains in a boxing gym for year.

At the end of the year, who do you think will be the better fighter?

Stan of course.

In this scenario it's clear that something like fighting works this way but it's not just fighting...

Most things work exactly the same way, including learning cyber security.

Don't take my word for it, go talk to a random cyber security college graduate and see how capable he is as a pentester. 

Go find a random computer science graduate and see how good of a coder he is.

The main issue is that all your life school only prepares you for knowledge-based learning.

So then it is no surprise that the few people that actually succeed from this environment are those that supplement with a lot of outside material.

Obviously this requires a ton of time and also a degree of luck because...