So I decided to start the OSCP. For those of you that don’t know, the OSCP is Offensive Security’s penetration testing certification. It’s considered the gold standard through HR filters when applying for jobs and a must-have for anybody who wants to become a penetration tester. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about the “try harder” method and how difficult the OSCP is when you use their training, so I decided to go about it a little bit smarter. Thanks to Tyler Ramsby, Heath Adams, and TCM Security, I’ve decided to study for the OSCP by using various different methods. In Tyler’s “How to Become an Ethical Hacker 2026” blog post, he recommended using the PNPT as well as hack-the-box CPTS in preparation for the OSCP. Now I realize that’s a lot of acronyms that I threw out there but let’s break it down a little bit.

A lot of people always wonder what cybersecurity cert they should get first. In this article I’m going to explain why I chose the Google Cybersecurity Certificate first before I did everything else.

So when I started this journey, I originally was working towards the CompTIA Security+, as every YouTuber and blogger had said, the Security+ was a fundamental certification that I needed to get. I began working on that and the concepts were new to me. The theory was challenging at times and it just wasn’t making sense. At some point in my studies, I found the Google Cybersecurity Certificate.

Welcome to my site. I’ll be posting security research, thoughts, and CTF write-ups here.

What to expect

• CTF box write-ups (HackTheBox, Hack Smarter, and others)
• General security topics
• Anything else I find interesting

Stay tuned.