A very nice post in a thread by SpOonWiZaRd Well, first up, you will have to read up on alot of things like: http://www.google.com/search?q=Cryptography http://www.google.com/search?q=Brute Forcing http://www.google.com/search?q=Dictionary Attacks http://www.google.com/search?q=Sniffing http://www.google.com/search?q=Telnet http://www.google.com/search?q=FTP http://www.google.com/search?q=Gopher http://www.google.com/search?q=TCP/IP Ports and Protocols Get the right software and learn how to use them Go to these sites and get the tools: http://www.oxid.it. (Get Cain & Abel) http://www.elhacker.net (Get lots of hacking tools) http://www.packetstorm.org (More tools) http://www.milw0rm.com (Submit hashes to them to crack) Http://www.paulschou.com/tools/xlate (Binary to almost anything converter) http://www.hnc3k.com (Lots of tutorials like elhacker.net) http://www.darknet.org.uk http://www.hellboundhackers.org (Site that gives you challenges) Practical http://www.hackthissite.org (Same as Hellboundhackers) http://www.packetstormsecurity.com (Every tool or dictionary you will need) http://www.freerainbowtables.com (Rainbowtables download) http://www.rainbowtables-online.com (Online cryptanalysis cracking site) http://www.ophcrack.org (Get ophcrack and ophcrack tables) http://www.hoobie.net (Get brutus and lots lots lots of exploits) http://www.hackology.com (Get more tools) http://www.l0pht.com (cracking site) http://lasecwww.epfl.ch/~oechslin/projects/ophcrack (more ophcrack tables) http://www.hackaday.com (very good hacking site with lots of hacks) http://www.killsometime.com (for those long cracking hours) http://www.security-hacks.com (exactly what it says) http://www.devshed.com/c/b/Security/ (alot of security tutorials) http://www.devshed.com/c/b/JavaScript/ (Javascript read abouts) http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/downloads/ (very cool hacking downloads!) http://www.hackershomepage.com/ (all about hacking and the latest tools) http://www.audreyhacking.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page (more toolz) http://softreflex.com/search.php?q=wwwhack (helps you find toolz easier than google) http://www.piratebay.org (basically anything you want, be it music or what ever!) http://sectools.org/crackers.html (Top 10 Password Crackers) http://www.piratebay.org (very good torrent site) http://community.reverse-engineering.net/index.php A dedicated site for reverse engineering http://www.viruslist.com/ I think the name makes it clear what its all about http://www.tuts4you.com/download.php?list.17 For any Starter in Reverse Engg, these are the best tuts you will ever have. (even the site has a lot of stuff for RE) http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=txt Although its not a resource but for starters its really motivating... very famously known as the - "Hacker's Manifesto"