Updated OSCP Materials: Part One

New OSCP Material: Part One:

   Due to the sheer volume of new material, I've decided to splice the review of the new OSCP curriculum into two (minimum) reviews.

I'll start with the new appearance. While we may find the absence of our esteemed narrator a little disappointing, the current one is just fine. There are some new bells and whistles to the interface, including a "dark mode", which many of you will find to be quite familiar. When a key point is being made, that section is underlined during the presentation to reinforce emphasis. Otherwise, the course flows in a very similar fashion to the old material.

   The material itself is a bit of old and new. The biggest difference is in the content. The Bash usage section is greatly expanded upon, and provides many new ways to manipulate strings of data. Certain commands like "awk" finally have their moment to shine. The introduction to Linux (and later, scripting) is a great introductory course to Linux, and is greatly improved. Many subtle details are now covered, as well as some important fundamentals as to how the operating system works and how to observe processes and connections.

   The sections regarding shells and connections has also been updated and expanded, with much more detail provided as to how these tools work, as well as new tools and methods covered. While much of the traditional methods have remained unchanged, that's because they still work, and they still operate exactly as they always have.

The material for Powershell is very helpful, and again, provides a great deal of information as to how it works. This section is one of the touted improvements from the original course material, and Offensive Security has every right to brag. Much of what you need to know regarding Powershell is present, and while certain administrative techniques have been left out, that is because it is beyond the scope of the course, which is already greatly expanded.

The material for Bash scripting was incredibly useful, and could be considered course materials for an introductory Linux course, given the level of detail provided. The material is very helpful, and anyone working in penetration testing will immediately recognize the practical examples given, which includes a stripped down version of a web page scraping tool many of us use.

So far, the folks at Offensive Security have truly lived up to their promise of updating their material, and it is certainly worth the money paid. I highly encourage those who haven't registered for the updated materials to do so. Part Two will be written up soon, as well as a cursory, spoiler free, hint free, and super generalized review of the labs. That might be a bit of a drab read, as I'll be extra careful not to reveal anything that could compromise the integrity of the labs.