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I want to tell you about something I've been quietly building for months.
Not a course. Not a YouTube channel. Not another list of "top 10 cybersecurity resources."
A curriculum. A real one. Structured, progressive, hands-on — and completely free.
It's called **Blue-Team-Mastery**, and I just published it on GitHub.
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## Why I Built This
When I started learning cybersecurity, I ran into the same wall that trips up almost every beginner.
There was plenty of content out there — YouTube videos, blog posts, Reddit threads, Discord servers full of people sharing links. But none of it was *organized*. None of it said: *start here, then do this, then do that.* None of it assumed I was coming in with zero background and needed everything explained from scratch.
I spent weeks just figuring out what to learn, in what order, with what tools.
That's time I should have spent actually learning.
Blue-Team-Mastery is my answer to that problem. It's the resource I wish someone had handed me on day one.
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## What It Is
Blue-Team-Mastery is a free, open-source GitHub repository structured as a full SOC analyst curriculum — organized into six progressive stages, from absolute beginner foundations all the way through to career launch.
No IT background is assumed. Every concept is explained before it's used. Every tool has a setup guide. Every stage builds directly on the one before it.
Here's the full learning journey:
**Stage 0 — Foundations** What is a SOC? What is SIEM? What do blue teamers actually do every day? How does the internet work at the level a security analyst needs to understand it? This stage answers all of it — in plain English, no jargon.
**Stage 1 — Your First SIEM** This is where you stop reading about security tools and start running them. Stage 1 covers two platforms: Splunk Enterprise (the industry standard, used in most enterprise SOCs worldwide) and Wazuh (the most powerful free, open-source SIEM/XDR available). Complete installation guides for Linux, Windows, and VirtualBox. First searches. First alerts. First dashboards.
**Stage 2 — Expanding Your Arsenal** The job market uses more than one SIEM. Stage 2 covers Elastic SIEM, Microsoft Sentinel, and Security Onion — giving you exposure to the full range of tools you'll encounter in interviews and on the job.
**Stage 3 — Attack Simulation Labs** This is where the real analyst training begins. Ten hands-on labs where you simulate real attack techniques — SSH brute force, lateral movement, data exfiltration, ransomware behaviour, command and control beaconing — then find and investigate them in your SIEM. Every lab includes the attack steps, what to look for in the dashboard, and an incident report template to fill out.
**Stage 4 — Threat Hunting & Detection Engineering** Beyond reactive alerting. This stage covers the MITRE ATT&CK framework, writing custom detection rules, integrating threat intelligence feeds, and building the proactive mindset that separates Tier 1 analysts from Tier 2 and beyond.
**Stage 5 — Compliance & Governance** Every enterprise SOC operates inside a compliance framework. PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR — this stage maps each framework to what it means for your day-to-day work as a SOC analyst.
**Stage 6 — Career Launch** Skills need direction. Stage 6 covers the full certification roadmap (from CompTIA Security+ to GIAC), SOC analyst interview prep with 50 real questions and answers, resume writing for zero-experience candidates, and how to build a portfolio from your home lab work.
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## What's Available Right Now
The repo is live today with the Splunk section fully published — all eight modules, from understanding what Splunk is and why it dominates the industry, through to installing it on Linux/Windows/VirtualBox, ingesting your first data, learning the fundamentals of SPL (Splunk's search language), and building your first security dashboard and alert.