Try Hack Me - CTF & 30 day streak

August 13, 2025

Recently, I hit a 30‑day streak on TryHackMe. I’ve been using the platform for longer than that, but now I finally feel like I’ve seen enough to actually write a post about it. Streaks can be achieved easily by doing just one activity a day; however, for me, this was more of a grind. I spent a lot of time doing labs and even took part in a CTF event. A nice side effect of that grind was racking up a lot of points and making it into the Diamond League.

Design

The site is built mostly around rooms, that’s what THM calls each individual topic they teach. Rooms can also be part of a path, which is a longer, structured journey where you progress step‑by‑step through each subject. This gives you experience in an organised way and builds towards a certain goal, like SOC analyst skills or penetration testing.

Each room is broken down into tasks. You can run their VM right in your browser, allowing you to immediately try out whatever you just learned. Usually, after each task, you’ll have to answer a few questions, some require reading, some involve doing activities in the VM, and some are interactive tests. All of them give you answers once solved, which you simply type in to move forward.

Everything is gamified: each completed task gives you points. These points work towards your weekly league ranking, you can climb higher or drop out. Points also increase your profile level. It’s simple and doesn’t carry deep meaning, but nonetheless it’s nice to have. That little extra push can be the nudge you need to keep progressing.

Overall, THM’s design makes learning feel straightforward and provides instant feedback on your progress. But ultimately, it’s up to you, the user, to make the most of it.

The path I chose was mostly SOC (Security Operations Center) oriented, with a strong focus on DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response).

DFIR

As I moved through different rooms, I found DFIR to be the most interesting and enjoyable. Investigating what happened in a system after an incident, identifying the type of attack and uncovering what the suspect tried to hide is fascinating.

This path introduced me to tools like EZ Tools, Volatility, Redline, Velociraptor, Autopsy, and others. I’ve got to be honest doing the Linux Essentials course by Cisco before diving deeper into THM really paid off here.

CTF

On July 26th, 2025, I participated in a CTF (Capture The Flag) event called Honeynet Collapse. At first, I wasn’t even sure if I should join. It was labeled as hard, and it really was, especially for someone just starting to learn DFIR.

After 6 hours, I managed to fully solve only 1 room and partially complete some tasks in others. It was a reminder of just how vast cybersecurity really is. But despite my lack of experience, I still placed 180th out of around 1,000 participants, and even got a certificate. That gave me back a little confidence.

After the event, I kept learning more on THM, and I still am probably will be for a long time. I could sum it up as:

“I know that I know nothing.”

Which is just another way of saying there will always be something new to learn and new ways to learn from it.

  © 2025 Lucas Wiktorowicz. All rights reserved.