Immersive Labs

Skyyyyy2001

has anyone heard of or tried using Immersive Labs? it's a UK based cybersecurity start-up that offers cybersecurity training and for students with a valid university email address, you can register and use their labs for free. I browse through some of their labs and it's quite comprehensive considering it's free using a student account.

from the mode of access, it's quite similar to the pentester lab but the difference is that pentester lab focus on web apps only and immersive labs focus is quite a bit of everything which is quite good and unique from my perspective.

personally, no complaints from me as a student and I can use the labs for free

TechGuru80

They have "Cyber Ranges" like that in the U.S. and they generally are pretty good from my understanding. Hopefully they record all the traffic so you can practice both red team and blue team.

Danielm7

Yep, I've used it. It's really good, can't beat the price, and they update labs every week.

McxRisley

From looking at the site, it looks like something that is only marketed towards companies and not individuals.

KAmes4545

Yeah, looks like it's toward corporations. Do they have individual accounts? Any idea on cost?

dkorzhevin

I think price depends on partner, from who you get access to immersivelabs

CJWelch89

We use Immersive Labs at work, they're excellent and easily on par with any of the eLearnSecurity labs I've done, and 100% free for some students, as per the below tweet I copied from their twitter.....


[FONT=&quot]Our platform is free to all students in part time and full time education in UK, US, Singapore and Australia. Let's plug the cyber skills gap [/FONT][FONT=&quot] Register with your uni email here [/FONT]http://ow.ly/Md3l30ksEyQ

KAmes4545

Just started using it and have to say it’s taking me some time to get use to it. Also, for some of the labs like for ex. Pass the hash lab, it just says 1. Run msfconsole 2. Use hash below 3. Read flag under c:\... that’s it, I’m not seeing what box/ip I’m suppose to try this on. I spend most of my time enumerating the network to find what box I’m suppose to be looking at first and then work on the vulnerability. Maybe I’m missing something but it feels like they just drop you in a little. Another ex. Is the struts labs, same thing, no ip or box name, good luck finding the box.

Skyyyyy2001

Its free for now if you have a student email address. So far my experience with it is very poaitive and a good supplementary learning material if you are planning for your eCPPT or OSCP.

I have yet to try the scenarios and CTF types of labs... looks really cool and every Friday they will add in 4 new labs.

KAmes4545

So it's been about 3 months using immersive labs and I have to say I love this platform.

Pros:

Can learn anything you want. I love how the platform, it has 4 different sections Knowledge, Tools, Techniques and finally Immersive Originals (HTB,CTF, etc). Each section builds off each other. Even some of the easier labs are fun like the OSINT one where you need to find out what Dade called his HR manager on twitter (fyi Dade deleted the entry on twitter) I had a good laugh at the answer

There's labs on everything. Are you just trying to learn linux and some commands? There's labs for you. Are you trying to get more familiar with burp? There's labs for you. Are you trying to learn digital forensic and maybe volatility is not your strong suit? There's labs for you. Maybe you're interested in OWASP top 10 and curious how they work, there's labs for you. Interested in reverse engineering? Yep, labs for you. Want to try out that new PoC for a new CVE that just came out? Yep, they usually come out with a lab for them! And maybe you just like to do CTF, well there's a whole section for you.

I feel like I have a pretty broad knowledge of tools but this platform pushes my limits with labs such as RSA decryption, rubber ducky packet analysis and learning protocols like Modbus. I definitely had to learn a lot from the labs, some of these labs are not easy and I've had to spend multiple hours to figure them out.

Cons:

Some people might think this is a pro and I might agree, but if you get stuck on a lab, best advise you're going to get is "the lab works and you need to dig deeper" Right now they don't have a hint system, so it's just you against the labs. They did have some information in the lab to lead you to the right direction, but if you get stuck, you really must research and try harder. This has been kind of a plus though because it's made me engage with my colleagues which has been an amazing experience as well.

You can't just sign up for an account. You do need an edu account to use this platform for free. I have to say at first I thought this platform was just for people getting out of school or in school but that's not the case at all. So, if you don't have access to an edu account to sign up, you won't be able to. They have come out recently with prices per person for businesses, it's about $2,000 per person per year and I have to say, I would be willing to pay for this out of my own pocket. Why? because new labs come out every week, customer support has answered my questions quickly and no other platform has helped me build up my skills slowly and made me progress as much as this platform has. 

One last thing and it's more a personal preference. They have a scoreboard which is awesome to see yourself move up the rank, but it's private. There's no way to show my employer or possible employer all the time I have spent on the platform and how much I've learned. With HTB, pentesterlabs or if you take a course from elearnsecurity you can make your profile public or show of the certification. With immersivelabs, you can only see the badges and point score if you have a login.

Conclusion:

I seriously don't know how more people aren't using this. It's a great platform, it has something for the beginner all the way to a professional working in the field.

P.S. - I'm actually going for my eTHP and currently using some of the volatility labs to make me more comfortable before taking the test.

Skyyyyy2001

I think it would be good to provide some hints along the way for working adults and with family commitments - like myself. Personally, I really like the labs' structure but the amount of time spent on it can be quite addictive and my wife/children will complain about me not spending enough time with them.