As a first step in the Infosec domain, I decided to complete OSCP as soon as possible. Once I came to know about it from my colleague, I googled a lot about it. Every blog I have read, mentioned that it is a PAIN which one must endure and it is worth doing. Not only the beginners in the Pentesting field but also people with 3-4 years of experience struggles in this. I did a lot of prestudy for OSCP and booked my on March 12th which is my Brother's b'day. I took the lab for 60 days.
I really enjoyed the lab time very much. I suffered during the initial few days of my time in the lab and got used to it soon. Daily I was spending roughly about 3 hours during the weekdays and about 8-10 hours in the weekends. During my 60 days in the lab I compromised about 33 machines with ROOT/SYSTEM access and had 4 limited shells. OBSERVER is one of the machines which I loved the most.
I took my first exam on May 14th at 2:30PM IST. By 9:30PM IST I had compromised one 25 pointer, one 10 pointer and had a limited shell on a 20 pointer. For the rest of the time, I did not progress at all and it was a big failure. However, I also learned a lot during the exam and decided to make up some strategy.
I rebooked my exam on 30th May at 8:30pm. In between, I practiced a lot of machines from vulnhub, doing about 1 machine for 2 days during weekdays and 1 machine on weekends. I mainly focused on the Medium and Hard ones so that I can be much prepared for the OSCP exam. This time I finally managed to get 75 points and managed to pass it even without the bonus points. I never will forget the moment when I at last got a BIND SHELL for a windows 8 machine working, when I was trying reverse shell with failure for about 3-4 hours.
Click below link to know more about the struggles and fun I had with OSCP, where I have described my weekly experience on OSCP lab in the techexams.net forum.
I really enjoyed the lab time very much. I suffered during the initial few days of my time in the lab and got used to it soon. Daily I was spending roughly about 3 hours during the weekdays and about 8-10 hours in the weekends. During my 60 days in the lab I compromised about 33 machines with ROOT/SYSTEM access and had 4 limited shells. OBSERVER is one of the machines which I loved the most.
I took my first exam on May 14th at 2:30PM IST. By 9:30PM IST I had compromised one 25 pointer, one 10 pointer and had a limited shell on a 20 pointer. For the rest of the time, I did not progress at all and it was a big failure. However, I also learned a lot during the exam and decided to make up some strategy.
I rebooked my exam on 30th May at 8:30pm. In between, I practiced a lot of machines from vulnhub, doing about 1 machine for 2 days during weekdays and 1 machine on weekends. I mainly focused on the Medium and Hard ones so that I can be much prepared for the OSCP exam. This time I finally managed to get 75 points and managed to pass it even without the bonus points. I never will forget the moment when I at last got a BIND SHELL for a windows 8 machine working, when I was trying reverse shell with failure for about 3-4 hours.
Click below link to know more about the struggles and fun I had with OSCP, where I have described my weekly experience on OSCP lab in the techexams.net forum.
Above is my Offsec certificate which I received on June 30th. I am really really very proud of achieving this cert. I must admit that one needs to dedicate lot of time for it and be ready to google and learn on their own.
Sticking to tradition, I would also like to say that "I am an OSCP because I TRIED HARDER!"
Sticking to tradition, I would also like to say that "I am an OSCP because I TRIED HARDER!"