Table of Contents
Small Businesses
Cybersecure Catalyst
Cybersecure Catalyst is a non profit organization geared towards helping Canadians and Canadian companies overcome the obstacles in the cybersecurity industry.
Penetration Testing
VulnHub
This platform is an alternative to HackTheBox. It has a very similar concept where it gives you a platform to safely and legally practice hacking into computer systems. It also has a lot of community support through tutorials and forums that provide guidance on how to approach each challenge.
HacktheBox
Hackthebox is a great platform for getting practical pen testing experience in a competitive game like environment. This company provides you with several servers that you can connect too remotely with files containing certain codes. The challenge is to hack into the machine, retrieve the code and upload it in order to earn points and increase your ranking. They consistently add new boxes/challenges and there are plenty of online tutorials to help you learn as you go.
Secondary Education
CyberTitan
CyberTitan is a program providing middle and secondary school students with an opportunity to learn through hands on simulated environments with the goal of giving them the skills necessary for a career in tech.
CanHack Challenge
The Digital Media Zone hosts a free competition called CanHack, a competition designed by students for students. The competition is divided into 60+ challenges spread across four different levels.
CCDC
This competition is open to students in grade 9-12 and geared towards students that are interested in a career in cybersecurity. Students will be given hands on training before getting a chance to put what they learn into practice.
Cloud Learning Platforms
Interactive Cloud based learning platform
Linux Academy is one of the best platforms for learning programming and cloud technologies I’ve come across. They have prep courses on AWS certifications, google cloud, microsoft azure and they allow you to login to those platforms and get hands on experience using it. Additionally, they offer many programming courses, allow you to spin up your own virtual machine and practice in the environment of your choice to learn different operating systems. Lastly, they allow you to pick “learning paths” and direct you in learning the skills required to get into different areas of tech.
Programming
Codewars online programming challenges
Codewars is an educational community for computer programming. On the platform, software developers train on programming challenges known as kata. They have several different challenges, offered in many different programming languages. After completing the challenges you will be able to see other users solutions and learn from other programmers in the community.
Topcoder Competitive programming
Topcoder itself is a crowdsourcing company that pays community members to work on projects and sells services to clients. It also has competitive programming competitions, which is a great way to practice your programming and improve by competing against other high quality programmers. I wouldn’t suggest this for beginners but more for intermediate level programmers looking to improve their skills.
