Breaking into cybersecurity without a roadmap is one of the most common reasons beginners stall out. They buy a course, skim through slides, and then freeze when they sit in front of a terminal and nothing clicks. The first 90 days are not about memorizing acronyms. They are about building the mental model, the hands-on instincts, and the structured knowledge base that turns a curious beginner into someone who can actually do the work.
This guide gives you that roadmap, from choosing your first course to writing your first real commands, structured around what actually works and built around the curriculum at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy.
Most people quit cybersecurity within the first three months. Not because it is too hard, but because they never anchor their learning to tangible, measurable progress. The candidates who stick and succeed are the ones who set a 90-day window, pick one clear learning target, and practice with real tools from day one.
The certifications and skills that matter at the beginner level are the ones that test applied knowledge, not just recall. Ethical hacking is the discipline that underpins almost every offensive and defensive security role. Understanding how attackers think, how they enumerate targets, how they exploit weak configurations, and how they move laterally through a network gives you the mental model that makes every other security topic easier to learn.
Redfox Cybersecurity Academy structures its curriculum along exactly this axis, starting with foundational ethical hacking concepts and progressing through specialized tracks covering web, mobile, cloud, and Windows environments.
Your first course should give you a complete picture of how offensive security works before you specialize. The Introduction to Ethical Hacking course at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy is the correct starting point. It covers the methodology, the tooling mindset, and the core concepts that every subsequent course builds on, all at a price point ($45) that removes any barrier to getting started.
Do not skip this step and jump straight into a specialized track. Beginners who skip foundations spend twice as long confused in intermediate courses.
Before you watch a single video, build a working lab. Studying cybersecurity without an environment to practice in is like studying surgery from a textbook with no hands-on component.
You need a hypervisor and at least two virtual machines. Install VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player on your host machine. Download Kali Linux as your attack machine and a vulnerable target such as Metasploitable 2 or a retired machine from a practice platform.
Your initial network configuration should look like this:
# Set both VMs to use a Host-Only Adapter in VirtualBox
# This isolates your attack traffic from your real network
# Verify your Kali IP once booted
ip addr show eth0
# Confirm connectivity to your target
ping 192.168.56.101
[cta]
Once you can ping your target, your lab is operational. Every concept you study from this point forward should have a corresponding command you run in this environment.
Security professionals who cannot read a packet capture are not security professionals yet. Spend the first two weeks making TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP feel completely natural from the terminal.
Run tcpdump and Wireshark side by side:
# Capture all traffic on eth0 and write to file
tcpdump -i eth0 -w capture.pcap
# Filter for only HTTP traffic and print ASCII output
tcpdump -i eth0 port 80 -A
# Filter for DNS queries only
tcpdump -i eth0 udp port 53
# Read back a saved capture file
tcpdump -r capture.pcap -n
[cta]
Open the same .pcap file in Wireshark. Use the http and dns display filters. Practice identifying the TCP three-way handshake, spotting cleartext credentials in HTTP sessions, and reading DNS query-response pairs. This single exercise teaches more practical networking than a week of passive study.
Web application security is the most accessible and most in-demand specialization for beginners. Nearly every organization runs web applications, and web vulnerabilities consistently dominate breach reports. Starting here gives you fast feedback loops because you can practice against real-world targets in a controlled way almost immediately.
The Web Hacking Basics Course at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy covers the core vulnerability classes: SQL injection, cross-site scripting, broken authentication, and insecure direct object references. These map directly to the OWASP Top 10, which is the vocabulary every web security conversation uses.
Once you complete the basics, the Web Hacking Advanced Course takes you into server-side request forgery, XXE injection, deserialization vulnerabilities, and business logic flaws.
Practice your web enumeration workflow from day one of this track:
# Passive subdomain enumeration using subfinder
subfinder -d target.com -o subdomains.txt
# Active directory brute force with ffuf
ffuf -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/DNS/subdomains-top1million-5000.txt \
-u http://target.com -H "Host: FUZZ.target.com" -mc 200,301,302
# Web directory discovery
gobuster dir \
-u http://192.168.56.101 \
-w /usr/share/wordlists/dirb/common.txt \
-x php,html,txt \
-o gobuster_results.txt
# Parameter discovery on a known endpoint
ffuf -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/burp-parameter-names.txt \
-u http://192.168.56.101/page.php?FUZZ=test \
-mc 200
[cta]
For every endpoint you discover, open it in Burp Suite and begin manually probing inputs. Automated scanners find the easy wins. Manual testing finds the critical vulnerabilities that matter in real engagements and in interview conversations.
SQL injection remains one of the most consequential vulnerability classes despite being decades old. Understanding it deeply, rather than just running sqlmap, separates candidates who can explain their findings from candidates who can only paste tool output.
Test manually before you automate:
# Basic error-based injection test in a URL parameter
curl "http://192.168.56.101/login.php?id=1'"
# Boolean-based blind injection test
curl "http://192.168.56.101/item.php?id=1 AND 1=1--"
curl "http://192.168.56.101/item.php?id=1 AND 1=2--"
# Once confirmed injectable, use sqlmap with a specific level and risk
sqlmap -u "http://192.168.56.101/login.php?id=1" \
--level=3 --risk=2 \
--dbs \
--batch \
--output-dir=./sqlmap_output
[cta]
Document every step. Your output directory becomes the evidence chain for a finding. This habit is what makes your lab work directly transferable to professional reporting.
The Redfox Cybersecurity Academy web courses walk you through this exact progression, from understanding why the injection works to chaining it into full compromise, with instructors who have executed these attacks in real client engagements.
If web security clicked for you in the first 60 days and you want to extend your surface area, mobile is the natural next step. Android and iOS applications are everywhere, and organizations consistently underprioritize mobile security testing because they lack internal expertise.
The Android Pentesting Course at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy covers APK reverse engineering, traffic interception, insecure data storage, and dynamic analysis. The iOS Pentesting Course covers IPA analysis, keychain extraction, and bypassing certificate pinning, which is one of the most practically relevant skills in mobile testing right now.
Set up an Android lab with an emulator and ADB:
# List connected devices and emulators
adb devices
# Install a target APK onto your emulator
adb install target_app.apk
# Pull the APK from a device for reverse engineering
adb shell pm path com.target.app
adb pull /data/app/com.target.app-1/base.apk ./target.apk
# Decompile with apktool
apktool d target.apk -o target_decompiled
# Convert to Java source with jadx
jadx -d target_java_source target.apk
# Search decompiled source for hardcoded secrets
grep -r "password\|api_key\|secret\|token" target_java_source/
[cta]
Hardcoded secrets in decompiled source code are one of the most common findings in real mobile assessments. Finding your first one in a lab application makes this vulnerability class feel concrete in a way no slide ever could.
For beginners with a strong interest in internal network penetration testing and red teaming, the Windows Red Teaming Course at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy is the right 90-day pivot. This course covers Active Directory enumeration, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and credential harvesting against Windows environments, which represent the majority of enterprise infrastructure.
Start practicing Windows enumeration the moment you have a Windows lab target:
# Enumerate SMB shares without credentials (null session)
smbclient -L //192.168.56.102 -N
# Enumerate users and shares with enum4linux-ng
enum4linux-ng -A 192.168.56.102
# Run a targeted Nmap script scan against SMB
nmap --script smb-enum-shares,smb-enum-users \
-p 445 192.168.56.102
# Check for common Windows misconfigurations
crackmapexec smb 192.168.56.102 \
-u '' -p '' \
--shares
[cta]
As you progress through the course, you will move from external enumeration into techniques like AS-REP Roasting and Kerberoasting, which exploit misconfigurations in Active Directory Kerberos settings. These are reliable, low-noise techniques used in real red team engagements:
# AS-REP Roasting: extract hashes for accounts without pre-auth
impacket-GetNPUsers domain.local/ \
-usersfile users.txt \
-format hashcat \
-outputfile asrep_hashes.txt \
-dc-ip 192.168.56.102
# Crack extracted hashes offline with hashcat
hashcat -m 18200 asrep_hashes.txt \
/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt \
--force
[cta]
If you have moved through the Introduction to Ethical Hacking and completed one or two specialized courses, the Masters in Ethical Hacking (RCPT) program is the logical progression. This is Redfox Cybersecurity Academy's flagship certification track, covering the full spectrum of offensive security disciplines in a structured, lab-driven format.
RCPT is the credential that signals to employers you have not just watched videos but completed a rigorous, hands-on program built by practitioners. If your 90-day goal is to position yourself for a junior penetration testing role or a red team internship, beginning RCPT within your first 90 days puts you on the right timeline.
One skill that separates hired candidates from perpetual students is the ability to document findings clearly. Every lab session you complete should produce a note file. Use a consistent structure:
# Finding: [Vulnerability Name]
## Host: 192.168.56.101
## Port/Service: 80/HTTP
## Severity: High
## Description
[What the vulnerability is and why it matters]
## Steps to Reproduce
1. Run: gobuster dir -u http://192.168.56.101 -w common.txt
2. Discovered /admin endpoint returning 200
3. Default credentials admin:admin granted access
## Evidence
[Screenshot filename or command output]
## Remediation
[What the defender should do]
[cta]
Practice this format in every lab session. When you interview for your first role, you will be able to describe exactly how you found something, what tool you used, what the impact was, and how it should be fixed. That level of clarity is rare in junior candidates and immediately distinguishes you.
Your first 90 days in cybersecurity certification are not about collecting logos. They are about building genuine technical capability one command at a time. Start with the Introduction to Ethical Hacking at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy to get your methodology right. Build your lab before you open lesson one. Follow the web track to land your first real findings. Then extend into mobile, Windows, or the full RCPT program depending on where your interests pull you.
The candidates who complete their first 90 days with a functioning lab, documented practice findings, and a clear course progression are the ones who land their first roles. Every tool, every command block, and every course linked in this guide is designed to get you to that point faster.
Start your path at Redfox Cybersecurity Academy and build something real.
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Delaware 19901,
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