After some time of "hitting the books," you will want to test your new skills. In all honesty, you need to practice your skills. It will help you becoming a better cyber analyst and keeping your skills sharp. The first lab environment I recommend is the Try Hack Me website. For $10.00 a month, you get access to a ton of training. They offer a learning path, as well. If you're new to the virtual lab experience, I recommend starting with the complete beginner's path. It will show you all of the basics you need to know. Then from there, you can build on top of a solid foundation. It doesn't take long before you are hooked on capturing the flags.

If you are looking for hands-on training to prepare you for a certification, then the INE starter Pass is the one for you. First, the starter pass is free, and all you have to do is set up an account with INE. You will have instant access to the cybersecurity training path. The cybersecurity training path gives you slides, videos, and hands-on labs to prepare you for the eJPT. The eJPT through INE is 200.00. The eJPT is a practical exam where you will get to test the skills you've learned through the course. The eJPT cert is a great value considering the CEH exam is only multiple-choice, and it's almost $2,000.00. INE also has several plans, starting at $49.00 a month, giving you access to even more training

HTB is another virtual lab experience, but it's not easy to navigate like Try Hack me. In my opinion, it requires a little more knowledge than total noob status.

Now on to the good stuff about HTB. First, to get an account, you have to "hack" your way in by finding the invitation code. Think of this as your first capture the flag (CTF) event! It was a lot of fun finding that code. I know some of you are like, what is CTF, and how do I "hack" the website to find this code?!?! Don't worry, just like most of the labs in HTB, there is a walkthrough. I was a noob, and I used the walkthrough to help me. Even with the help, it was still a lot of fun. It gives someone new to hacking a glimpse of their unique journey.

HTB offers a monthly subscription for $10.00 or you can buy an annual subscription for 100.00. It is well worth the investment. HTB offers a lot of virtual boxes to hack into with many different ways to exploit the box.

The Cyber Mentor is fantastic! He offers so much free content and resources for the ethical hacking community. He has a discord room, Youtube channel, Twitter, and Twitch account that you need to check out. His TCM academy offers courses for reasonable prices. The amount I learned from the Practical Ethical Hacking (PEH) course was far more than the cost. The PEH is $30.00, and it is worth every penny. One of the best parts is how he shows you to exploit several boxes on the Hack The box website. So, if you are going to subscribe to HTB, I highly recommend this course to learn a few boxes before diving in on your own. You will also learn so much more in this course, and I would take it if you are new to ethical hacking.

Range Force is another great platform to get some hands-on training. They have a free Community Edition that contains 20 modules. They cover the basics of Splunk, nmap, the OSI model, and many other topics. They have paid versions as well. You can have the option to pay for access to everything or buy battle passes for a specific course. Some of the courses (called battle paths) are SOC analyst, Web Application Security, and Threat hunting courses. They offer badges through acclaim for completing the course. To figure out the pricing you will need to contact Range Force to set up an account and work with them to see what you want to take and the cost.

This training platform is 100% free and doesn't require a VPN to connect to their servers, instead, you will use SSH. OTW turns cybersecurity training into a game. It is a lot of fun and it is easy to follow once you get started. Overall I really enjoyed how easy it was to use the platform and the gaming aspect of learning. I completed the Bandit game and learned a ton of Linux commands. Using the skills to actually complete challenges really helped to retain what I learned.

Want to learn PowerShell and need it to be for free? This is the platform from you! It is like, Over the Wire, the platform turns learning into a game. You use PowerShell commands to complete the games. As I said with OTW, using the commands to solve the game will help you retain more of what you learned. Additionally, UTW is 100% free as well and is a great platform to learn PowerShell.