SOC Analyst Learning Path — Job-Ready in 2 Months

Program Overview

This 8-week learning path is crafted to turn beginners into job-ready SOC Analysts, equipped with the essential technical and practical skills required in real-world Security Operations Centers. The program emphasizes hands-on labs, guided learning, and interview simulations to ensure career readiness.

Structured Curriculum

Progressive learning path from fundamentals to advanced topics

Hands-on Labs

Real-world scenarios and practical exercises

Mock Interviews

Technical and behavioral interview preparation

Career-Focused

Emphasis on building job-ready skills

Final Outcome

Graduates of this learning path will be fully prepared to:

Handle real SOC Tier 1 & Tier 2 tasks confidently
Approach job interviews with practical experience
Build a portfolio of labs and analysis reports
Enter the cybersecurity job market with a competitive edge
Apply security principles to protect organizational assets

Program Curriculum

Our comprehensive curriculum is designed to build your skills progressively, from foundational knowledge to advanced techniques used in modern SOCs.

Week 1

SOC Essentials

Learn the foundation of SOC operations, responsibilities, and modern challenges.

SOC Functions & Roles
Incident Handling Basics
Threat Detection Overview
Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
SOC in the AI Era

Week 2

Incident Handling and Response

Understand and apply the full incident response lifecycle.

Detection & Analysis
Containment, Eradication, Recovery
Post-Incident Activities
IR Process Documentation & Templates

Week 3

Network Security and Packet Analysis

Detect intrusions by analyzing network traffic and flows.

Packet & Flow Analysis (PCAPs)
Suricata, Zeek, Snort Labs
Network Attacks: DoS, MITM, TCP Hijacking
Protocol Analysis: DNS, HTTP/S, SSL

Week 4

Preparing & Defending Against Attacks

Learn attacker techniques and how to defend proactively.

Reconnaissance & Scanning Defense
Exploitation & Post-Exploitation Defense
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Tactics
Defense-in-Depth Strategies

Week 5

SOC Workflow, Log Management, and Analytics

Master log analysis and behavioral detection.

Logging Standards & Protocols
DNS/SMTP/HTTPS Traffic Analysis
Endpoint Telemetry
Deviation & Baseline Creation

Week 6

Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR)

Acquire forensic skills to investigate compromised systems.

Windows Artifacts & Logs
Memory Forensics
Linux Forensics
Registry and Event Analysis

Week 7

Threat Hunting

Hunt for hidden threats using attacker behavior patterns.

PowerShell / VBS Initial Access
OverPass-The-Hash & PSExec
Mshta / HTML Application Defense Evasion
MITRE ATT&CK-based Hunting

Week 8

Interview Simulations (Bonus Module)

Prepare for real SOC analyst interviews with confidence.

Mock Interviews with real-world SOC questions
Technical Challenges (PCAP analysis, log correlation)
Behavioral Questions training
Personalized feedback on communication skills

Tools You'll Master

Get hands-on experience with the industry's most important security tools and platforms used in modern SOCs.

Wireshark

Suricata

Zeek (Bro)

Snort

Volatility

Event Viewer

OpenSSL

MITRE ATT&CK

Sysmon

Wazuh

Key Skills Developed

Incident Response Lifecycle

Packet & Flow Analysis

Log Collection & Analysis

Threat Detection & Hunting

Digital Forensics

Memory Analysis

Adversary Simulation

Network Security

EDR & XDR

SIEM Management

Malware Analysis

Alert Triage

Endpoint Security

Interview Readiness