Being on the right side of the law

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Hey everyone!

I am very new to the world of cybersecurity, and I absolutely love the HTB platform. As I get deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, doing HTB and HTB Academy, I’m starting to realize how much I ACTUALLY need to learn. And I think we can all agree that it is tough starting out, and as the world of tech moves as fast as it does it can be hard to keep up, even for a professional (atleast I imagine). As I do my pen testing, HTB, and other fun projects, I sometimes end up using tools or programs that I don’t completely understand. And while in theory its totally fine, it had me thinking: What shall I do if I end up breaking the law by mistake?

Obviously if I get caught I would just have to be honest and explain what happened, and hopefully nothing serious happens. Either way I would take it from there.
But what if I run a program that does something illegal and it goes unnoticed? And for the sake of this post lets say I learn that I just did something illegal during the process. Should I inform someone to be one step ahead in case someone does find out? Or should I wait and see if someone does, and then just cooperate with law enforcement?

I want to be perfectly clear that this is not about “I hacked my gf, got busted, and how do i get away with it?”. I’m writing this post in hope of being one step ahead if a mistake happen, and I can be on the right side of the law so things don’t go sideways.

What are your thoughts?

How can I prevent this from happening when I start to test my own home network(s)?

PS: I know that I could probably find some answers on the internet. But I thought it would be a good way be a part of the community and hear your thoughts. + I didn’t seem to find any post about it on this forum. :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer.

-x2

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Hello,

Dude if you plan on testing your own network, you’re not doing anythings illegal.
In order for it to be illegal it would have to harm others, otherwise it’s just “personal pen-testing”.
And be reassured, hacking is hella hard you can’t “do somethings” illegal by mistake (normally).
if you got into systems etc it is probably intentional and as long as you test on yourself then it should be fine.

think of it as shooting, if you’re doing it in a shooting range it’s fine, but if you aim at a crowd then it’s not.
pen-testing tools are gun alike if you’re using them in a secure environment, nothings will happen

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