About KashSec Academy

A free cybersecurity course written for people who are starting from nothing.

Why this exists

Security training is expensive. The well-known platforms charge a monthly subscription, the recognised certifications cost several hundred pounds each, and the free tiers are usually a sample designed to make you buy the rest. If you have money, that is a fair trade. If you do not, the door is shut — and it is shut hardest on exactly the people who would benefit most from walking through it.

KashSec Academy is the course I wanted to exist for those people. Everything on it is free, permanently, with no account required and no trial that expires. There is no premium tier and there is nothing held back.

Who it is for

Complete beginners. Not "beginners" in the sense of people who already write code — beginners in the sense of someone who is not sure what a network is. The first path starts at what a computer actually is, and every term is defined the first time it appears.

It is also useful if you are further along and have gaps, which almost everyone does. The paths are independent enough to drop into.

How it is written

Plain English, and long. Most free security material is either a listicle or a video; both are easy to consume and hard to learn from. The lessons here are closer to a textbook chapter: they explain why something works, not just the command that does it.

Everything practical runs in your browser. The labs simulate rather than provision — no virtual machine to install, nothing to configure, nothing that stops working when a cloud credit runs out. That is a real limitation as well as a feature, and the labs say so where it matters.

How it is paid for

It is not, particularly. The site is static and hosting it costs almost nothing. Advertising may appear on lessons to cover that; if it does, it will be modest and it will never sit between you and the content. Nothing on this site has ever been behind a payment, and that is not going to change.

Who makes it

KashSec Academy is written, built and maintained by Ishfaq. You can find me on LinkedIn — connect if you are learning security, working in it, or would like to help make the course better.

Corrections

Security material goes out of date and hand-written material contains mistakes. If you find one, please say so — there is a reporting widget on every lesson, and the contact page has the other routes. Corrections are genuinely welcome and get made.