How to squeze the most out of TryHackMe paths? Cool side projects to reinforce your learning

If you’re getting into cybersecurity, you must’ve heard of TryHackMe

Yk, the site that plenty of people recommends for beginners to make their first steps in this field

It’s great for starters and gives you a clear direction of what to learn step-by-step.

But even with all the hands on practise there, you might want a bit more. But what more can you do? That’s why here, I wanted to share with you some of my ideas for interesting projects that you can complete alongside working through paths

Quick note:

Before we start, many thanks to @Green Oppenheimer from TryhackMe’s discord for an idea to make this post
Also - I did not complete all the paths (yet heh). I have some started, some never touched, so don’t crucify me if I didn’t include projects for your loved path or the one you aspire to complete.
This list is to be expanded and updated when THM refreshes next paths\

If you have any more ideas, my DMs on discord are open (just pls ask before you DM) and I can add them to the list

Article structure

As I’ve said, I assume most of us is familiar with THM. But, for those who aren’t, I will start each paragraph with a brief into to what the path teaches and then present 3-4 projects I think could help learners level up their skill and get even better grasp of what it has taught them

This article is pretty long, so if you look for a specific path only here’s the table of contents:

Now, time for the juicy part

1. Pre-Security

Pre-security path is meant to introduce an adept to what cyber is
It gives you a little nugde of what this field is about, and very basic understanding of concepts necessary for cyber

Pre-sec covers:

As you can see, it’s not a lot. Pre-security is a great introduction, but is not sufficient to move freely around those basics
At this point in learning, I’d focus on taking good notes in a format that suits you best and pivoting to cybersecurity 101 for more practical knowledge

Yet, to reinforce what you’ve learned there I can suggest

  1. Do some basic binary and hexadecimal calculations (addition and subtraction)
    In Data Represenation room, you’ve learned how to represent numbers in different formats
    Binary will come in handy in networking for example - in subnets and their masks to be more exact

    And if you ever would want to dive into malware analysis, digital forensics or just do more low-level coding, then hex should be your friend.
    It’s frequently used to represent memory locations and their offsets, as well as important parts of executables

    Where should you get it from? Either ask AI to generate you a bunch of them, or be a bit more old fashioned and find them in Google! Internet is a place full of it, you just need to search

    And about searching

  2. Practise your research and learning skills
    Cyber is absolutely massive. You’ll never know everything and even if you somehow did, next day half of your knowledge could be obsolete

    And in our field (especially the offensive part of it), AI frequently refuses to cooperate.
    That’s why you still need a good old skill of googling and researching. You’ll have to learn fast and adapt even faster.

    For some more practical steps, look up Google dorks and familiarize yourself with some of the most common ones.
    But don’t forget about AI. Even tho I’ve said it might argue with you, it’s still a tool you need to be able to use.
    That’s why, you should learn how to prompt AI effectively and how to verify what it says (after all, it’s just a bunch of matrix multiplications and probability)

    Your research now doesn’t need to be on cybersecurity in particular. It can be on something you’ve liked before or just a random topic you found interesting
    I’d personally recommend researching effective learning methods
    Try to spend an hour or 2 on deep searching and then 1h on combining it into a page of notes (And don’t forget to use what you’ve learned).

  3. Try some basic coding
    Pre-sec introduced you to fundamentals of Python, Javascript and SQL. Why not expand a bit more on it?

    Programming has helped me a lot in my journey and I encourage you to try it yourself.
    Do some basic projects and get comfrotable reading code. It might look like gibberish first, but dw - it starts to make sense at some point

    For learning sources of those 3, I’d recommend

Now let’s move to the next path

2. Cybersecurity 101

While pre-sec gently introduces you to infosec, Cybersecurity 101 is what actually builds those fundamentals necessary to progress further
I’d argue this is the most important path and that gives you a lot of possiblity to expand

Cybersec 101 covers:

And for the projects:

  1. Get a plain Debian or Kali VM, rice it and tune to your needs
    Best way to learn linux is by actually using it, so why not make it as ours as it could be?
    That’s what ricing is all about. It’s a fun word that describes completely changing what a linux distro looks like
    Apart from basic wallpaper change, you can adjust what your terminal looks like, what icons apps have, widgets, shortcuts and actually anything you want

    For some inspiration, check Reddit’s r/unixporn subreddit (Trust me, it’s not NSFW)
    If you check my youtube channel, you’ll probably find a bunch of videos of me using a bit tweaked Kali. It ain’t too much, but I really like it

    For cool wallpapers I use wallhaven.cc

  2. Set up a network using VMWare or Virtualbox, where both Linux and Windows VM can exchange data via a shared network drive
    Virtual machines are something that comes in handy while learning cyber.
    No matter if you want to try out a new OS safely, need to check something on a specific OS version or have another project in mind - you will use them\

    For this project, you can use the VM you’ve made in a previous one - then set up a windows VM and pick one folder you want to share around the network.
    There are tutorials online on how to set up a VM and how to add a drive. Your job is to combine them both and make it work.

    If you’re feeling extra confident, treat the VM as a household computer and set it up to be used by many ppl.

  3. Capture some web traffic, decrypt HTTPS and look it up in wireshark
    And I don’t mean that you should break the encryption lol. Export certificates from your browser or use what Palo Alto has prepared
    If you want to pivot more into blue team, wireshark is a very useful tool you need to know how to utilize.
    And if you have a real sample, then it’s even better.

    Best way would be if that traffic had some files downloaded or credentials passed. This way you’ll recap what does HTTP traffic look like and how are different types of data passed around.

Those projects might sound a bit vague, but that’s the point. You can’t succeed in cyber if you have to be guided all the time.
This is why i put research skills as a project in Pre-security
A good indicator if you did it correctly imho, would be that when you stumble upon an issue, your first thought is to search it and not give up.

Next projects won’t have a step-by-step guide too, but I’m sure you’ll get what I mean

3. SOC Level 1

Now we’re stepping into job-ready paths. SOC L1 is one of them.
Here, user learns what SOC roles are about, how SOC works and how to use different tools to analyze and triage events
This comprehensive path covers the necessary technical and operational skills to make you a qualified, universal SOC analyst.

For the projects:

  1. Prepare a playbook to solve a common alert
    In standard scenarios this would probably be a job of more advanced analysts. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do it for fun

    TryHackMe’s SOC simulators can be pretty useful. Solve the alert and write down reproductable steps, that you took to resolve the issue.
    Make it in a way that next analyst will not have to think too much about that. Try to also cover edge cases that weren’t present in the scenario

  2. Write a full investigation report of a THM room
    Not only answer questions,but write a full report. How did you find the attacker, what was their goal and what tactics did they use.
    Try to rebuilt the attack from artifacts step by step
    Rooms like Vantara Leak or Silent Transfer are great for such projects.

  3. Craft Splunk/Elastic snippets to assist with investigations
    That’s something to do alongside SOC L1 path, especially capstone part
    When you have a room that runs splunk/elastic try to make things as easy for you to investigate by using SPL or KQL to its fullest

    Craft tables, summaries and everything else that your tool allows you to! That’s how you build proficiency

    3. Junior Penetration Tester

From defence, time to jump into offense - Jr. Pentester is a path for you, if you want to learn what hacking is about. You’ll come out of it knowing how to perform pentests on real servers, apps and networks

Jr. pentester covers:

And for the projects

  1. Write a pentest report (not a writeup)
    In the path itself, there’s a room about writing pentest reports. Use what you’ve learned there and put it to the test on a real machine
    Pwn a box and treat it as a pentest engagement. Take notes on the go and then write a report.

    You can use AI to curate it or judge it - If you prompt it correctly it’s not that bad in assessing pre-made work

  2. Re-write an exploit you used
    While tackling different rooms you’ll use exploits made by other people. That’s not a bad thing - knowledge is to be shared
    But personally, I was never a fan of bash. So when I encountered a bash PoC, I decided to rewrite it in python

    It took me an afternoon, but I’ve learned a lot. And that’s what I recommend you to do too. Such project will not only boost your scripting skills
    but also get you more used to exploit databases and reading vulnerability disclosures

  3. Enumerate AD without using Bloodhound
    Bloodhound is one of the most useful tools for AD exploitation, without a doubt - but it’s very noisy
    That’s why you need to know what to do if it’s not an option.

    Write some Powershell scripts, use native binaries or explore other, more evading tools. Possibilites are endless and you’re the one to pick a method!

Conclusion

I hope this piece of text has helped you at least a bit in broadening your horizons.
Of course, this is not an exhausted list - If you have any more project ideas, hmu on discord (just ask first pls)!

With my progress on TryHackMe, I’ll also try to expand it to include other paths.
But for now, thanks for reading and see you in other articles!

Category: tryhackme

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