Taking A Look At TryHackMe A Cyber Security Learning Platform

almost 3 years ago

When you think game development something you probably are not putting much thought into is cybersecurity. After all, there are endless mountains of other things you are thinking about, and stressing over trying to solve seems more important at the time.

I’ve noticed in my bubble of game development resources, people, and sites I follow that cybersecurity is rarely if never talked about at all. When I talk with other game developers this is yet again a topic that never gets touched. It’s somewhat strange how there seems to be this void around securing your game.

TryHackMe is not a site I would say is only focused on game developers or games or anything of that sort. While they do have a couple of what they call “rooms” that seem to draw some inspiration from games it’s not an outlying theme.

There is however quite a lot of general information that can be gleaned and even used by indie game developers that find themselves having to wear every hat to get the job done. Depending on the kind of game you are making and how much of a footprint you are looking to create. You could end up having a website, databases, servers, and other infrastructure. Many of these things interacting in one way or another with your game as well.

Linux fundamentals

As I slowly expand out my knowledge in the game development world regarding multiplayer and networking. This for me has been quite a difficult place to try and get a grasp around. You start to notice quite a few things as well. One of them is the cost of running a server and your bottom line.

Most of my own experience has always been with Windows and windows products. Windows servers are however quite more pricy due to their licensing fees than say a Linux box. If you however have low or no understanding of Linux it’s hard to go in that direction at first.

Thankfully this is where a platform like TryHackMe starts to come into the picture. They have just recently revamped their beginner introduction to Linux fundamentals. It goes over quite a lot of the basics of using the Linux console from SSHing into a Linux box, file permissions, repositories, and a lot of other stuff.

While quite a long time ago I had my system at the time duel booted for windows Ubuntu. I rarely Ubuntu due to my lack of understanding. So I found their intro section on Linux quite helpful in re-jog my memory and filling in quite a lot of key areas I just did not know much about.

I’m also not at a point where I want to set up a dual boot system these days. Thankfully their platform is set up in a way I don’t have to play around on it. They have what they call an AttackBox that you can connect to and from within their platform you can start a Linux or whatever distro is needed at the time in the browser for that room.

If you are a free user like I am you are limited to one hour a day in being able to deploy a distro for use on their network only. There are also quite a few lessons (rooms) that are premium only. For only $10 a month it seems like quite the deal. I still however am trying to get all the free content I can till I want more hands-on experience. You can also use a VPN to connect to them if you are running your own Linux box.

Penetration Testing

Another big thing on the TryHackMe platform is penetration testing of databases, servers, and even websites. They have tutorials and demos where you are learning by doing on a practice Attack Box they have set up.

As a game developer, this is quite nice as you get to see, understand, and play with different attack vectors. All of this knowledge you can take back into securing your game’s website, database, or other infrastructure.

A large component of it is understanding how to research within the cybersecurity world. They have several resources they share where you can research products to find what kind of common security issues they have. Since those sites are dedicated to cybersecurity they usually provide solutions as well.

Something a bit more related to a game developer could be working with SQL or having to configure servers. They have several rooms relating to SQL injection and misconfiguring exploitation of systems. It’s hard to understand how to stop something if you don’t know how it’s done in the first place. This at least gives you a starting point that you can build from.

Cyber Defense

Another large section that the platform is broken down into is focusing on cyber defense. While there is a lot of overlap between the major different sections. Each one once the basics are understood drills down to more core topics at hand.

I can think of quite a few games over the years even those in the blockchain space that had some major incidents go down. Let’s face it as an indie game developer you usually don’t have much of a budget for anything fancy as far as cyber defense goes.

While I have not gone into too much detail about this section myself as some of the more interesting topics around it require being a premium member. They do have quite a few different examples of using tools to carry out monitoring, forensics, and other tasks.

Final Thoughts

The platform itself seems to have hundreds of hours of learning, examples, and things to do. While it might not be laser-focused on game developers this kind of resource even if you are just using it as a free user is quite a valued one. This is not something I’ve come across even remotely in my journey into game development.

Also unlike other places, I’ve tried quite a long time ago they seem quite active in adding in new content (rooms) along with updating older ones. In a Discord I’m in we have a channel with their announcement bot in it. A few times a week it's announcing new rooms to try out. I wish I had checked this learning platform out sooner.

Their community has also made a lot of different resources to help people when they get stuck. This can be in the form of YouTube videos, tutorials, or just hints. It feels like a place that is focused on you learning, trying, and improving.

At the very least I have surpassed quite a lot of people I know in my short time on the platform. I’m about to hit level 7 with 21 rooms completed. The platform is done in such a fun way that it keeps me wanting to work on things a little each day.