Hack the Box lab and Starting Point machines

In this project, I am building a home lab for Hack the Box and completing the Starting Point labs.

One of my favorite online platforms to practice hacking is Hack the Box. They have the HTB Academy site for learning cybersecurity, and the HTB Labs site to provide a gamified learning experience for pentesting. I particularly enjoy the HTB labs site the most because you are able to jump right into learning pentesting with little-to-no experience required. However, the site only allows you to use their browser-based virtual machine for only a few hours on the free tier. In this project, I fix the issue by creating my own hacking lab using VMWare Workstation Pro and connecting to HTB Labs using their VPN for the Starting Point machines.

What I am using for this project:

• VMWare Workstation Pro (free for private use)

• Kali Linux .iso file (free)

• HTB Labs (free for this project)

• An internet connection

As of right now, I have finished creating the hacking lab and am about two-thirds of the way done with the free Starting Point machines. When they are finished, I will update this page into a blog post and place it in my completed projects along with the full write-up of how I configured everything.