How to Become a Cybersecurity Expert? Where to Start, What Tools and Knowledge are Needed?

Cybersecurity is one of the most critical and rapidly growing fields in the digital world. As the need to protect the data of institutions, governments, and individuals increases every day, specializing in this field offers both a prestigious and lucrative career opportunity. In this article, we will explain in detail the steps you need to take to become a cybersecurity expert from scratch, as well as the necessary skills and tools.

1. Define Your Goal: Which Area of Cybersecurity Do You Want to Specialize In?

Cybersecurity is a broad umbrella term. First, decide which area you want to focus on:

Subfield	Description
Red Team (Attack)	Penetration testing, intrusion tests, attack simulations
Blue Team (Defense)	Log analysis, SIEM, incident response, threat hunting
Purple Team	Combined analysis of attack and defense
Forensics	Post-incident investigation, digital evidence analysis
Malware Analysis	Malicious software analysis and resolution
SOC Analyst (Tier 1/2)	Real-time threat monitoring and response

2. Start with the Basics

Network Knowledge

OSI Model (Layer 1-7)
TCP/IP, UDP, DNS, DHCP, NAT
Packet analysis with Wireshark

System Knowledge

Linux commands (Debian, Ubuntu, Kali)
Windows architecture (regedit, services.msc, CMD, PowerShell)

Hardware and Virtualization

VMware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V
BIOS, UEFI, firmware updates

3. Tools and Environments

Tools for Penetration Testing (Red Team)

Kali Linux
Burp Suite
Metasploit
Nmap
Nikto
Hydra / John The Ripper

Tools for Defense (Blue Team)

SIEM (Wazuh, Splunk, Graylog)
Suricata / Snort IDS
Sysmon + Windows Event Viewer
Sysinternals Tools

Other Useful Environments

TryHackMe (Hands-on labs)
HackTheBox
CyberDefenders
VulnHub (VM-based scenarios)

4. Certifications and Training

Certification	Description
CompTIA Security+	Basic cybersecurity concepts at the entry level
CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker)	Penetration testing and ethical hacker knowledge
OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional)	Practical penetration testing competence
CISSP / CISM	Managerial-level security expertise (Mid-Advanced Level)

⌨️ 5. Which Programming Languages Should Be Learned?

Python: Automation, exploit development, log analysis
Bash / PowerShell: Script-based system control
JavaScript / PHP: For web security
C / C++: Reverse engineering, system-level vulnerabilities

6. Career Path and Job Opportunities

Junior SOC Analyst → Security Engineer → PenTester → Senior Red/Blue Team
Freelance bug bounty (HackerOne, BugCrowd)
Government positions (TÜBİTAK, BTK, MSB, cyber army)

7. Stay Up-to-Date

Follow experts on Twitter/X (@SwiftOnSecurity, @thegrugq)
Reddit /r/netsec
BleepingComputer, TheHackerNews, ZDNet
CVE tracking sites (cvedetails.com)

Conclusion

To become a cybersecurity expert, you must first grasp the basic knowledge and then deepen your knowledge in a specific area. This journey requires a lot of practice, a test environment, and constantly staying up-to-date. This field is quite accessible even for someone starting from scratch; just proceed step by step and be patient.