Building my very first at-home hacking lab to practice using and familiarize myself with common hacking tools used by penetration testers.

I follow instructions from content creator NetworkChuck on YouTube to create my very first hacking lab to get hands on experience.

The following is the documentation of my experience downloading, installing, setting up, and securing my at-home virtual hacking lab:

• Downloaded VirtualBox, VirtualBox Extension Pack, and the various VM OS such as Kali Linux, Ubuntu, Black Arch, and ParrotOS

• After downloading VirtualBox and the VirtualBox Extension Pack, began downloading the various VM OS 

• Kali Linux successfully downloaded and installed with no issues

• Ubuntu 22.04.1 downloaded with no issues, however when installing into VirtualBox ran into the problem that displayed “Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!”. After researching and testing different fixes suggested online, the final fix that worked was to increase the number of processors for the VM from 1 processor to 2. After retrying, Ubuntu 22.04.1 installed properly.

• BlackArch Linux successfully downloaded and installed with no issues

• ParrotOS successfully downloaded and installed with no issues

• Downloaded the MR-ROBOT: 1 vulnerable machine from VulnHub

• Modified Kali Linux and MR-ROBOT: 1 settings to harden and secure internal network, isolating system from host

• Kali Linux VM and MR-ROBOT: 1 vulnerable machine successfully isolated from host network, ready to play with and attack. 

• At-home hacking lab successfully set up, secured, and ready to go.