So, I’m two weeks through my OSCP journey and really enjoying it!

I’m still on the videos and exercises and have found there are a lot of them! I’ve got 5 more modules to go then its on to the Labs! Although, I have been using the labs for the exercises.

My goal for this week is to finish off my videos and lab guide and make a start on the Labs.

The Lab section is a private network where you can compromise multiple machines and you need to do a minimum of 10 for your lab report.

Hopefully, by my week 3 update ill have compromised some lab machines. When I’ve done 10, ill do my Lab report so its out of the way. Once that’s done, ill keep practicing in the Labs and Try Hack Me.

Booking my exam is the final step after those!

So what have i picked up this week?

Buffer Overflows

I was worried about these as its one of my weak points!

From watching the videos and doing the exercises, i’m really happy with my learning on this as I was able to complete all the unguided exercises after I did the learning. The way the videos and lab guide break it down really helps. Doing these i got a real sense of achievement and it didn’t take long to pick up!

USB Images

In my week 1 update I talked about the need for backing up. This week I’ve started imaging my live Kali USB in case anything goes wrong with it. So i’m doing this every week and along with my backup schedule, id never lose a thing no matter what. Also, when i go into my exam, I will have 2 live USB drives so that if one fails, i can just switch to my backup.

But does the USB drive I use make a difference?

Absolutely!!

My original drive is a Sandisk Ultra Fit (Amazon HERE) and this works great! I decided to deviate for my secondary drive and went with a Kingston DataTraveller Kyson (Amazon HERE).

I’ve put a table below of there specs comparison;

On paper the Kyson drive should perform better correct?

Wrong! It’s much worse to use a live OS on that drive. There is noticeable delays when opening something simple like a terminal. There’s lag in saving documents and don’t even consider running nessus on this!

I wanted to give it a chance, so I had ordered two of these and tried the other one which was exactly the same!

I expected with it being USB 3.2 to be faster than the ultra fit but no, it was much slower.

NOTE: I am not sponsored by any companies, these are my honest experiences from using these drives.

Try Harder

This is the philosophy for the OSCP course and i will admit it does really apply. If something isn’t working or your stuck on one of the exercises, you do need to keep trying. It can be too easy to give up and google, but this isn’t the way your going to learn. That being said, it can be demoralising if your stuck and don’t know how to progress. That’s where the forums come in. I had to use these recently and they helped me without giving me the answer so i figured it out myself with their prompt. As with capture the flags, you need to keep going but when your stuck and seek help, don’t seek the answer, seek guidance.

Lab Guide and Videos

Its really important to understand that these work together, not independently! I was getting too reliant on the videos and not reading my lab guide PDF which meant there were bits i was missing. The way I’ve been doing this is by watching a video then going and reading that videos section in the lab guide which is working better for me.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my week 2 update and if your thinking of doing the course or have already started, I hope what I’ve picked up helps you.

As always, any questions or comments let me know! I may be increasing my social media presence for the site at some point in the near future!

Marc