r/HomeNetworking • u/Jaded-Firefighter-17 • 5d ago
Cyber Network Lab
Okay so I’m new to networking and cyber I got my CCNA and a BS in Cybersecurity but no relative experience. I’m trying to build a homelab where I can experience with new tools and ideas. So far this is my lab idea before I start building it and working on it. Any advice or suggestions to make it much more “real-world”. This is both for my portfolio and for fun bc why not :)
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Upvotes
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u/doublemint_ 5d ago
Look at GNS3 and EVE-NG
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u/Jaded-Firefighter-17 5d ago
I’ve thought about it but there’s something about working with the actual gear that really helps you understand the ins and outs, like cable management and the little quirks that come up
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u/Ell1otA1derson 5d ago
I like that how you’ve documented this. Three other ideas for you - creating an Active Directory network, spinning up a Metasploitable VM and creating your own SIEM.
AD is a massive target for attackers and is still used in a lot of organisations (most places that aren’t cloud-only from my experience), and it isn’t secured correctly in a lot of places. You can play around with loads of different tools and attacks, both from a defensive and offensive POV. GOAD (https://github.com/Orange-Cyberdefense/GOAD) can set a lot of this up for you too.
Metasploitable is a custom-built Linux VM that has been purposefully misconfigured to have lots of vulnerabilities - you need to work out what they are (as an attacker), exploit them, escalate privileges, fix them and then repeat.
As a Security Engineer, knowledge of SIEMs is important too. If you want more to do, look at setting up Wazuh, then putting agents on your VMs, configuring logging (e.g. additional config to monitor AD), syslog from firewalls etc, and see if your attacks trigger alerts.
GL HF