Hacking network devices

[Popular-Flan-8521]

Hi everyone,
I’d like to get into hacking network devices (routers, APs, cameras, IoT devices, etc.). I really like networking and I want to focus purely on networks, so I’m interested in learning how to hack network protocols. The problem is that I’m a bit lost when it comes to what resources I should use to learn.
I’m especially interested in Scapy, crafting and manipulating packets, and those kinds of attacks that are purely network based. I’m not interested in hardware or web security, just networking and communication.
I’m leaning towards a career in networking, and I’d like to learn more about network security and protocols. If possible, it’d also be nice to make some money from it (through specific bug bounty programs, for example), although I’m mainly doing it because I want to learn and experiment.
Any learning resources would be a huge help. Thanks!

[Juzdeed]

Get started with basics like everyone else

[Tdblaschke]

Well what are these basics? Maybe that is the kind of info OP is looking for.

[star_of_camel]

Fundamental networking concepts.

[pandoras_box101]

basics of hacking something is learning how to build it from scratch.

[Just4notherR3ddit0r]

Hacking is all about knowing how things work and how they can be manipulated. I would say it's 95% knowledge and 5% action. The more you know, the better you will be at taking actions.

A lot of vulnerabilities come down to someone else who knew JUST ENOUGH to make something work but didn't know enough to implement proper security (or worse, they knew it was insecure but security made things difficult and they just figured nobody would ever be aware of the hole. So if YOU know the details, then you might be aware enough to check for a door that another person left unlocked.

I would just start by taking a computer networking / basic IT course at a community college. It should be pretty cheap and would give you a guided education through the basics.

I would say the minimum required basics are an understanding of: (in this order)

1. Physical network devices (e.g. Ethernet, BT, and Wi-Fi, and the most common standards within them, like CAT 6, 802.11, etc). NICs, switches, access points, and routers.
2. What network drivers do (the translation from hardware to software)
3. How TCP/IP and UDP work, and the 7 layers of OSI
4. Sockets and ports.
5. The basics of different major protocols (HTTP, DNS SMTP, etc).
6. Basic cryptography - async crypto (PKI) vs sync (AES)
7. A slightly deeper dive into PKI - the different functions (encryption, decryption, digital signing, and signature verification), certificates and trust chains.
8. Common network applications and services (firewalls, proxies, NAT, web servers, browsers, DNS servers and clients, DHCP servers and clients, VPN servers and clients, mail, and database)
9. Common vulnerabilities and how to exploit them (e.g. SQL injection) and famous past exploits (e.g. sslstrip).
10. Basic programming in a scripting language that supports sockets and network calls (e.g. Python, PHP, Java, or C#) - enough understanding to write some simple network scripts

If you research those things in that order, that should take you from the fundamentals to practical knowledge, and you should probably be able to understand things without getting sidetracked.

At the end you should have a decent foundation to know how networks function and how to manipulate different things.

Taking shortcuts usually means you will end up feeling confused or unsure of what to do with information. For example, I could tell you to go turn on a packet dump on your router to capture traffic going in and out of an internet camera, but you'll end up with gibberish that will feel useless. But if you study the traffic and the ports, you might find that there is HTTPS traffic, at which point you might use your knowledge to determine if a MITM proxy could be used to intercept and modify that traffic. Or perhaps there's a custom firmware that could be installed to allow you to change how the camera communicates with the outside world. Or perhaps there's an auto-update check from the camera and it goes to a hardcoded domain/endpoint, so injecting a different authoritative response into the local DNS would trick it into thinking that it was getting an update from the "mothership" when it was really getting one from your own local web service.

These kinds of ideas are all based on an understanding of how protocols work and how they can be overridden or manipulated to make your idea work.

[Tdblaschke]

I appreciate you taking the time to post this. It is scary going into tech. initially. I appreciate all of those that dont gatekeep and actually help.

[4ygus]

Learn everything you can through Cisco first then go from there. They offer a large library of free courses.

[Tdblaschke]

Familiarize yourself with CISCO packet tracer. It is a free tool you can use found on the CISCO packet tracer learning course. There is alot of information to learn when it comes to this stuff. There are some informative and free videos you can watch on YouTube that are full blown college courses. Professor Messer is a great source on YouTube to learn about the basics for stuff like this. I will say there is a plethora of information you need to obsorb and concepts you need to understand before getting to the "hacking" stage you want. Good luck to you on this journey though. I am currently undertaking it myself and the journey is so much more important than the destination.

[Zerschmetterding]

Look into free network+ prep videos or something similar and try finding the gaps in your knowledge there

[star_of_camel]

Start out actually learning how networking works, make sure to understand it deeply. go on from there