🔰 IoT Beginner Path

Duration: ~4 weeks · Level: 🟢 Beginner · Resources: 18

Goal: by the end of week 4, you can extract & analyze the firmware of a real consumer router.

Week 1 — Lay of the land

• Read: IoT Hardware Guide
• Read: An Introduction to Hardware Hacking
• Watch: Hands-on IoT Hacking @ DEF CON 30

Week 2 — Hardware interfaces

• Read: Identifying UART Interface → our own page
• Hands-on: connect a USB-UART adapter to a cheap IP camera
• Read: Hardware Hacking 101: JTAG

Week 3 — Pulling firmware

• Read: SPI flash extraction
• Hands-on: dump a flash chip with your CH341A programmer

Week 4 — First analysis

• Tool: Binwalk
• Tutorial: extract & explore the filesystem
• Try: IoTGoat CTF

---

Next steps

Ready for more? Pick one:

• Wireless → BLE Researcher path
• Firmware deep dive → Firmware RE path (coming soon)
• Industrial systems → ICS path (coming soon)