Thoughts on Building a Home Lab?

On LinkedIn we asked:

To build a home-lab or not to build a home lab. Waste of time or totally necessary?

Some might argue that platforms like Hack The Box or TryHackMe are enough to develop the skills you need. And sure, those platforms are great for learning attack techniques and sharpening your exploitation skills. But they only tell half the story.

Building a home lab teaches you how things actually work. Setting up Active Directory, configuring firewalls, deploying vulnerable web apps.. this is where you gain the foundational knowledge to not only exploit systems but also secure them.

As security professionals, our job is more than just finding vulnerabilities; it’s about demonstrating risks and providing actionable solutions. Without understanding the systems you’re testing, it’s easy to miss the bigger picture.

If you’re aiming to level up in cybersecurity, investing in a home lab is a no-brainer. It’s not just about hacking..it’s about intimately knowing the systems you’re protecting.

What are your thoughts on building a home lab? Here are a few from the 42 comments on LinkedIn.

“I strongly encourage homelabs for anyone at any point on their technology journey. Especially if they want to stay current and continue developing their tradecraft. That said, I understand if someone may not have the space, budget, doesn’t want to deal with the noise or heat, etc associated with extra physical infrastructure. But… homelabs don’t need to be any of that!

Raspberry Pi’s and similar SoC’s can serve as affordable homelabs, and can even enable tinkering on some really cool physical projects with the GPIO.

With desktop virtualization solutions being free to use and most computers being respectfully powerful these days, if not a homelab, at least a virtual playground is a great option.

Last, maybe these physical things are cool and all, but they might not fit in someone’s life for one reason or another. Those online labs and cyber ranges are spectacular and let people really jump into the action, which might be the best time-to-return for some people.

In every single case — they provide huge opportunities for learning and development. Unlike school and work, there’s nobody telling you what to do and when to do it. It’s your time and lab.

My lab keeps me up some nights way past my bed time 😂.

Also, there’s countless cloud providers who offer a very small virtual instance, 24/7/365, on decent networks and reliable infrastructure for less than $10/mo.

I’ve used these many times for projects, testing, development, etc. Terms of service vary for security-specific usage but just another idea!”

-Ben G.

“Building a home lab can also yield valuable pre-career resume items with real-world returns. It's also just nice to have a safe place to try out new technologies without risk! Awesome post!”

-Tyler S.

“After working in virtual box a ton, I still don’t understand the point of investing money and space in a home lab. All the skills mentioned here can be practiced quite well on vbox. But maybe I’m missing something ….”

-Brian S.

“Having extensive Vbox infra. at home could be conceived as a home lab of sorts in and of itself. That being said, though, I think it totally depends on the skills that one is trying to learn. If a student is trying to learn the ins and outs of route/switch so that they can better understand network security architecture? Well you'd be BETTER off with a small router and physical switch to prove those concepts with. You COULD virtualize it all...but that isn't the reality on the ground for a lot of orgs. Practicing on the physical equipment has a lot to give in terms of learning benefit.”

-Tyler S.

“For physical networking concepts that’s surely true. But for almost everything else - subnetting, dns, exploits, firewalls, AD … the list goes on … I can’t think of much that can’t be virtualized. I have about 40 vboxes I’ve put together over the last few years, each (or sometimes a network of them, like my AD cluster) for practicing different things. I’m not saying don’t put together a home lab … there’s a whole lot you’ll learn. But I’d start with virtualization, cause it’s free and you can be off and running usually in under an hour.”

-Brian S.

“In my opinion, establishing a home lab is absolutely essential for anyone in the security field. As a security professional, it’s crucial to have a controlled environment where you can experiment with various exploits and apply mitigations to test their effectiveness and resilience in real-world scenarios. Without this hands-on testing, there's a risk of assuming that your security measures are foolproof when, in reality, they might have vulnerabilities that you haven't yet identified. The danger of operating with a false sense of security is far greater than many realize, as it leaves systems exposed to potential breaches that could have been prevented. Being proactive—by regularly testing, refining, and updating your security posture—is far more valuable than being reactive after an attack has already occurred. Building and maintaining a home lab allows you to stay ahead of potential threats, ensuring your defenses are robust and resilient.”

-Oghenetejiri K.

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