Passed the OSCP without any Security Work Experience (First Attempt)!

I just took the OSCP exam this Monday(06/27/2022) and passed it. I got my result back on Wednesday evening while shopping (roughly about 24 hours after I submitted the report on Tuesday)! My report was about 48 pages in length and documented every step of the process as well as many screenshots to demonstrate what I was doing.

Exam day:

  • My exam starting time was at 10:00 am so I woke up around 8:00 am, took a shower, and made sure I had everything I needed to start the test (checked the webcam, the task manager running, read through the exam requirements once again, prepared coffee, water and some snacks on the desk, and most importantly my “hacking music playlist” on youtube!)

Long night with AD:

  • (6:30 pm Initial Foothold) After I had dinner with my husband and walked outside for a minute to refresh, I continued with the AD set (I’m not going into details due to offsec regulations). For the second machine in the AD, I got very stuck again for a simple error. Took a break and realized my mistake, I soon was able to move laterally to the second machine.

Post-Exam:

  • (Tuesday 3:00 pm)Since I wrote step-by-step instructions while taking the exam, I only had to put all the information in the word template the offsec provided and add sentences here and there to make a professional-looking report. It took me about 3 hours to complete the report and submit it after I got some sleep.

Exam Review:

  • It was an unforgettable experience overall. It was mentally and physically challenging. One thing I’m glad I did was to prepare my schedule for taking breaks. I followed the schedule almost all the way. It calmed my nerves by talking to my husband, petting my cats, walking around the house, etc. These breaks gave me fresh perspectives I needed to break free from daunting moments during the exam.

My background:

  • I work in the non-security-related team at an IT company and self-studied some practical pentesting, developing ethical hacking python scripts on a few udemy courses.

Hopefully, this will encourage someone who has no pen-testing work experience to try the OSCP. I was not planning to pass it the first time as I read many horror stories about the exam so I’m very relieved that I made it and I can take a break from studying! This is the first good break I’m taking after my Master’s! I’m buying a new game!!!

My good-luck kali linux T-shirt:
Exam ended and saw sunshine
My exam report length — 48 freaking pages.
It’s over… thank god.
I did it!!
Yes, I printed out the cert immediately with a fancy paper put it in a frame!

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HTTPS://Gorigorisensei.com

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